POPULAR NOVELS.

                       _By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes._


    I. —TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.

   II. —ENGLISH ORPHANS.

  III. —HOMESTEAD ON THE HILLSIDE.

   IV. —LENA RIVERS.

    V. —MEADOW BROOK.

   VI. —DORA DEANE.

  VII. —COUSIN MAUDE.

 VIII. —MARIAN GREY.

   IX. —DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT.

    X. —HUGH WORTHINGTON.

   XI. —CAMERON PRIDE.

  XII. —ROSE MATHER.

 XIII. —ETHELYN’S MISTAKE.

  XIV. —MILLBANK.

   XV. —EDNA BROWNING. (_New._)


 Mrs. Holmes is a peculiarly pleasant and fascinating writer. Her books
 are always entertaining, and she has the rare faculty of enlisting the
 sympathy and affections of her readers, and of holding their attention
             to her pages with deep and absorbing interest.


   All published uniform with this volume. Price $1.50 each, and sent
                 _free_ by mail, on receipt of price by

                         G. W. CARLETON & CO.,
                               New York.




                             EDNA BROWNING;
                                  OR,
                        THE LEIGHTON HOMESTEAD.
                                A Novel.


                                   BY
                          MRS. MARY J. HOLMES,

                               AUTHOR OF

  TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.—LENA RIVERS.—MARIAN GREY.—MEADOWBROOK.—ENGLISH
       ORPHANS.—COUSIN MAUDE.—HOMESTEAD.—DORA DEANE.—DARKNESS AND
 DAYLIGHT.—HUGH WORTHINGTON.—THE CAMERON PRIDE.—ROSE MATHER.—ETHELYN’S
                      MISTAKE.—MILLBANK.—ETC.—ETC.

[Illustration]

                               NEW YORK:
                  _G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers._
                       LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.
                             M.DCCC.LXXII.


       Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
                             DANIEL HOLMES,
       In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.


                           Stereotyped at the
                        WOMEN’S PRINTING HOUSE,
                   Corner Avenue A and Eighth Street,
                               New York.




                               CONTENTS.


             CHAPTER                                    PAGE
                  I. ROY, OUR HERO                         7
                 II. AT LEIGHTON HOMESTEAD                15
                III. GEORGIE’S TELEGRAM                   25
                 IV. GEORGIE                              31
                  V. ROY’S DECISION                       40
                 VI. NEWS OF EDNA                         44
                VII. MISS PEPPER’S LETTER                 50
               VIII. THE BRAVE LITTLE WOMAN               60
                 IX. AFTER THE ACCIDENT                   69
                  X. GEORGIE AND JACK                     77
                 XI. EDNA’S FIRST WEEKS AT MRS. DANA’S    84
                XII. HOW AUNT JERUSHA RECEIVED THE NEWS   89
               XIII. JACK’S HOME                          97
                XIV. EDNA AND ANNIE                      101
                 XV. AUNT JERRY                          107
                XVI. AUNT JERRY AND EDNA                 114
               XVII. WHERE EDNA WENT                     123
              XVIII. AT UNCLE PHIL’S                     127
                XIX. UNCLE PHIL                          135
                 XX. UP IN THE NORTH ROOM                150
                XXI. MISS OVERTON                        158
               XXII. MAUDE’S VISIT                       166
              XXIII. PAYING DEBTS                        181
               XXIV. GEORGIE AND JACK                    186
                XXV. IN THE SUMMER                       199
               XXVI. AFTER ANOTHER YEAR                  206
              XXVII. EDNA ACCEPTS                        215
             XXVIII. EDNA GOES TO LEIGHTON               219
               XXIX. GEORGIE’S SECRET                    232
                XXX. AT LEIGHTON                         240
               XXXI. OVER AT OAKWOOD                     246
              XXXII. THE CROQUET PARTY                   252
             XXXIII. HOW THE ENGAGEMENT WAS RECEIVED     270
              XXXIV. HOW THEY GOT ON AT LEIGHTON         281
               XXXV. LETTERS                             289
              XXXVI. ANNIE HEYFORD                       299
             XXXVII. THE NIGHT OF THE PARTY              311
            XXXVIII. AFTER ANNIE’S DEATH                 323
              XXXIX. MAUDE AND EDNA VISIT UNCLE PHIL     328
                 XL. GETTING READY FOR THE BRIDAL        333
                XLI. THE BURGLAR                         343
               XLII. THE ALARM                           355
              XLIII. ROY                                 361
               XLIV. LAST DAYS                           371
                XLV. DEATH AT OAKWOOD                    378
               XLVI. JACK’S MARRIAGE AND JACK’S STORY    381
              XLVII. ROY FINDS EDNA                      395
             XLVIII. MRS. CHURCHILL AND EDNA             407
               XLIX. THE WEDDING                         411
                  L. CONCLUSION                          420




                             EDNA BROWNING;

                                  OR,

                        THE LEIGHTON HOMESTEAD.




                               CHAPTER I.
                             ROY, OUR HERO.


“Robert, son of Arthur and Anna Leighton, born April 5th, 18——,” was the
record which the old family Bible bore of our hero’s birth, parentage,
and name, but by his mother and those who knew him best, he was always
called _Roy_, and by that name we introduce him to our readers on a
pleasant morning in May, when, wrapped in a heavy shawl, he sat in a
corner of a car with a tired, worn look upon his face, and his teeth
almost chattering with the cold.

A four-month’s acquaintance with the chill fever, taken at the time the
river rose so high, and he worked all day to save some of his tenants
who lived along the meadows, had wasted him to a shadow, and he was on
his way to the West, hoping that change of air and scene would
accomplish what bottles and bottles of quinine, with all the usual
remedies for fever and ague, had failed to do.

Beside him sat his mother, a fair-haired, proud-faced little lady of
fifty, or more, who conducted herself with a dignity becoming the
mistress of Leighton Homestead, her son’s beautiful home on the Hudson.

Anna Leighton had been much younger than her husband, and at the time of
her marriage there were rumors of another suitor in whose brown beard
there were no threads of gray, and of whom Mr. Leighton had been
fearfully jealous. If this were true, it accounted in part for his
strange will, by which only a small portion of his large fortune was
left to his wife, who was to forfeit even this in the event of a second
marriage. In her case, love proved more potent than gold, and, two years
after her husband’s death, she married Charlie Churchill, who made up in
family and blood what he lacked in lands and money. There was a trip to
Europe, a _dolce far niente_ dream of happiness for eighteen months amid
the glories of the eastern hemisphere, and then, widowed a second time,
Anna Churchill came one dreary autumn day to the Leighton Place, on the
river side, where, six months after, she gave birth to a little boy, for
whom Roy, then a mere lad, stood as one of the sponsors in the old
ivy-grown church at the foot of the hill.

Since that time, Mrs. Churchill had lived at the Leighton Homestead, and
been, with her younger son, altogether dependent upon her eldest born,
who had made her, to all intents and purposes, the honored and welcome
mistress of his house. Only one sore point was there between them, and
that was handsome and winning, but unprincipled Charlie,—who, looking
upon his brother’s fortune as his own, would, if uncontrolled, have
spent it with a recklessness which would soon have brought the Leighton
Homestead under the auctioneer’s hammer.

Charlie was a spoiled boy, the neighbors said; and when, at sixteen, he
coolly appropriated his brother’s gold watch, together with a hundred
dollars in money, and went off to Canada, “to travel and see a little of
the world,” they shook their heads, and said Roy would be justified in
never taking him again into favor.

But Roy did not think so, and when Charlie had fished all summer among
the Thousand Islands, and spent his hundred dollars, and pawned his
watch, and fallen sick in Montreal, Roy went for the young scamp, who
cried like a child at sight of him, and called him “a brick,” and a
“dear old Roy,” and promised he would never be bad again, and in proof
thereof would, if Roy said so, join the church, or take a class in
Sunday-school, or go through college, he did not care which. And so Roy
took him to the Academy in Canandaigua, and said that to the teachers
which resulted in Mr. Charlie’s being kept rather closer than was
altogether agreeable to him. After a time, however, the strict
surveillance was relaxed, and by his winning ways, he grew to be very
popular with both teachers and pupils, and many a slight misdemeanor was
winked at and overlooked, so powerfully did his soft blue eyes and
pleasant smile plead for him.

At the time our story opens he had been in Canandaigua nearly a year and
a half, and Mrs. Churchill and Roy were intending to stop for a day at
the hotel and visit him. There were but few passengers in the car
occupied by Roy and his mother, and these were mostly of the quiet,
undemonstrative kind, who nodded in their seats, or read the newspaper,
and accepted matters, _air_ included, as they found them; consequently,
poor Roy, who, shaking with ague, had a morbid dread of open windows,
had for hours luxuriated in an atmosphere which made a group of young
girls exclaim with disgust, when at a station thirty miles or so from
Canandaigua they came trooping in, their cheeks glowing with health and
their eyes sparkling with excitement.

There were four of them, and appropriating the two seats directly
opposite Roy, they turned one of them back, and to the great horror of
the invalid opened both the windows, thereby letting in a gust of air
which blew directly across Roy’s face, while Mrs. Churchill received an
ugly cinder in her eye, which nearly blinded her. In blissful ignorance
of the discomfort they were causing, or of the very uncomplimentary
things the sick man and his mother were thinking, the girls chattered
on, and the cool wind blew the ribbons on their hats far out behind, and
tossed their veils airily, and lifted the golden brown curls of the one
who seemed to be the life of the party, and who talked the most, and
kept the others shrieking with laughter, while her bright eyes glanced
rapidly around the car, noting everything and everybody, until at last
they lighted upon the pair just across the aisle, Mrs. Churchill working
away at the obstinate cinder, and Roy wrapping his shawl more closely
about him, and wondering why girls would always persist in keeping the
windows open when everybody else was freezing. Roy was not in a very
amiable state of mind, and he showed it in his eyes, which flashed a
savage glance at the girl with the curls of golden brown, whom her
companions addressed as Edna. She was the worst of them all, for she had
opened both the windows, and then with the exclamation that she was
“roasted alive,” sat fanning herself briskly with the coquettish little
hat she had taken from her head. As she met Roy’s angry glance, the
smile which a moment before had wreathed her lips, vanished suddenly,
and she looked at him curiously, as if half expecting him to speak. But
Roy was silent for a time; then, as the bright, restless eyes of the
offender kept meeting his own inquiringly, he mustered courage to say:

“Young lady, you’ll oblige me by shutting that window. Don’t you see I
am catching cold?” and a loud sneeze attested to the truth of what he
said.

It was not like Roy Leighton thus to address any one, and he repented of
his surliness in an instant, and wished he might do something to atone.
But it was now too late. He had shown himself a savage, and must abide
the result.

The window was shut with a bang, and the gay laughter and merry talk
were hushed for a time, while the girl called Edna busied herself with
writing or drawing something upon a bit of paper, which elicited peals
of laughter from her companions to whom it was shown. Roy could not help
fancying that it in some way related to himself, and his mother thought
the same, and was mentally styling them “a set of ill-bred, impertinent
chits,” when the train stopped before the Canandaigua depot, where, as
usual, a crowd of people was assembled. This was the destination of the
girls, who, gathering up their satchels and parasols, hurried from the
car in such haste that the bit of paper which had so much amused them
was forgotten, and fluttered down at Mrs. Churchill’s feet. Her first
impulse, as she stooped to pick it up, was to restore it to its owner,
but when she saw what it was, she uttered an angry exclamation, and
thrust it into her son’s hand, saying:

“Look, Roy, at the caricature the hussy has made of us.”

No man likes to be ridiculed, and Roy Leighton was not an exception, and
the hot blood tingled in his pale cheeks as he saw a very correct
likeness of himself, wrapped in a bundle of shawls, with his eyes cast
reproachfully toward a shadowy group of girls across the aisle, while
from his mouth issued the words, “Shut that window, miss. Don’t you see
I am freezing?”

Beside him was his mother, her handkerchief to her eye, and the
expression of her face exactly what it had been when she worked at the
troublesome cinder. Instead of a hat, the mischievous Edna had perched a
bonnet on Roy’s head, and under this abominable picture had written,
“Miss Betty and her mother, as they looked on their travelling
excursion. Drawn by Edna Browning, Ont. Fem. Sem., May 10th.”

It was only a caricature; but so admirably was it done, and so striking
was his own likeness in spite of the bonnet, that Roy could not help
acknowledging to himself that Edna Browning was a natural artist; and he
involuntarily began to feel an interest in the young girl who, if she
could execute this sketch in so short a time, must be capable of better
things. Still, mingled with this interest was a feeling of indignation
that he should have been so insulted by a mere school-girl, and when, as
he alighted from the car, he caught the flutter of her blue ribbons, and
heard her merry laugh as she made her way through the crowd to the long
flight of stairs, and then with her companions walked rapidly toward
Main street, he felt a desire to box her ears, as she deserved that they
should be boxed.

Thrusting the picture into his pocket, he conducted his mother through
the crowd, and then looked about in quest of his brother, who was to
have been there to meet them, and who soon appeared, panting for breath
and apologizing for his delay.

“Professor Hollister wouldn’t let me out till the last minute, and then
I stopped an instant to speak to some girls who came on this train. How
are you, mother, and you, old Roy? I don’t believe I should have known
you. That ague has given you a hard one, and made you shaky on your
legs, hasn’t it? Here, lean on me, while we climb these infernally steep
stairs. Mother, I’ll carry that satchel. What ails your eye? looks as if
you’d been fighting. Here, this way. Don’t go into that musty parlor.
Come on to No. —. I’ve got your rooms all engaged, the best in the
hotel.”

And thus talking, with his invalid brother leaning on his arm, Charlie
Churchill led the way to the handsome rooms which overlooked the lake
and the hills beyond. Roy was very tired, and he lay down at once, while
his mother made some changes in her toilet, and from a travel-soiled,
rather dowdy-looking woman in gray, was transformed into a fair, comely
and stylish matron, whose rich black silk trailed far behind her, and
whose frills of costly lace fell softly about her neck and plump white
hands as she went in to dinner with Charlie, who was having a holiday,
and who ordered claret and champagne, and offered it to those about him
with as much freedom as if it was his money instead of his brother’s
which would pay for it all.

Roy’s dinner was served in his room, and while waiting for it he studied
Edna Browning’s sketch, which had a strange fascination for him, despite
the pangs of wounded vanity he felt when he saw what a guy she had made
of him.

“I wonder if I do look like that,” he said, and he went to the glass and
examined himself carefully. “Yes, I do,” he continued. “Put a poke
bonnet on me and the likeness is perfect, hollows in my cheeks, fretful
expression and all. I’ve been sick and coddled, and petted until I’ve
grown a complete baby, and a perfect boor, but there’s no reason why I
need to look so confounded cross and ill-tempered, and I won’t either.
Edna Browning has done me some good at least. I wonder who the little
wretch is. Perhaps Charlie knows; she seems to be here at school.”

But Roy did not ask Charlie, for the asking would have involved an
explanation, and he would a little rather not show his teasing brother
the picture which he put away so carefully in his pocket-book. They
drove that afternoon in the most stylish turnout the town afforded, a
handsome open barouche, and Roy declined the cushion his mother
suggested for his back, and only suffered her to spread his shawl across
his lap instead of wrapping it around him to his chin. His overcoat and
scarf were all he should need, he said, and he tried to sit up straight,
and not look sick, as Charlie, who managed the reins himself, drove them
through the principal streets of the town, and then out into the country
for a mile or two.

On their way back they passed the seminary just as a group of girls came
out accompanied by a teacher, and equipped apparently for a walk. There
were thirty or more of them, but Roy saw only one, and of her he caught
a glimpse, as she tossed back her golden brown curls and bowed
familiarly to Charlie, whose hat went up and whose horses sheered just
enough to make his mother utter an exclamation of fear. She, too, had
recognized the wicked Edna by her dress, had seen the bow to Charlie,
with Charlie’s acknowledgment of it, and when the gay horses were
trotting soberly down the street, she asked,—

“Who was that girl you bowed to, Charlie? the bold-faced thing with
curls, I mean.”

Now if she had left off that last, the chances are that Charlie would
have told her at once, for he knew just whom she meant. A dozen of the
girls had bowed to him, but he had had but _one_ in his mind when he
lifted his hat so gracefully, and it hurt him to hear her called “a
bold-faced thing.” So he answered with the utmost nonchalance.

“I don’t know which one you mean. I bowed to them all collectively, and
to no one individually. They are girls from the seminary.”

“Yes, I know; but I mean the one in blue with the long curls.”

“Big is she?” and Charlie tried to think.

“No, very small.”

“Dark face and turned-up nose?” was the next query.

“No, indeed; fair-faced, but as to her nose I did not notice. I think
she was on the same car with us.”

“Oh, I guess you must mean Edna Browning. She’s short, and has long
curls,” and Charlie just touched his spirited horses, causing them to
bound so suddenly as to jerk his mother’s head backward, making her
teeth strike together with such force as to hurt her lip; but she asked
no more questions with regard to Edna Browning, who had recognized in
Charlie Churchill’s companions her fellow-passengers in the car, and was
wondering if that dumpy woman and that muff of a man could be the
brother and mother whom Charlie had said he was expecting when she met
him that morning in the street.




                              CHAPTER II.
                         AT LEIGHTON HOMESTEAD.


It was a magnificent old place, and had borne the name of Leighton
Homestead, or Leighton Place, ever since the quarrel between the two
brothers, Arthur and Robert, as to which should have the property in New
York, and which should have the old family house on the Hudson, thirty
miles or so below Albany, and in plain sight of the Catskills. To
Arthur, the elder, the place had come at last, while Robert took the
buildings on Broadway, and made a fortune from them, and dying without
family, left it all to his brother’s son and namesake, who, after his
father’s death, was the richest boy for many miles around.

As Roy grew to manhood he caused the old place to be modernized and
beautified, until at last there were few country seats on the river
which could compete with it in the luxuriousness of its internal
adorning, or the beauty of the grounds around it. Broad terraces were
there, with mounds and beds of bright flowers showing among the soft
green turf; gravel walks which wound in and out among clumps of
evergreen and ran past cosey arbors and summerhouses, over some of which
the graceful Wisteria was trailing, while others were gorgeous with the
flowers of the wonderful Trumpet-creeper. Here and there the ripple of a
fountain was heard, while the white marble of urns and statuary showed
well amid the dense foliage of shrubbery and trees. That Roy had lived
to be twenty-eight and never married, or shown a disposition to do so,
was a marvel to all, and latterly some of the old dowagers of the
neighborhood who had young ladies to dispose of had seriously taken the
matter in hand, to see if something could not be done with the grave,
impassive man. He was polite and agreeable to all the girls, and treated
them with that thoughtful deference so pleasing to women, and so rarely
found in any man who has not the kindest and the best of hearts. But he
never passed a certain bound in his attentions, and the young ladies
from New York who spent their summers in the vicinity of Leighton Place
went back to town discouraged, and hopeless so far as Roy was concerned.

“It was really a shame, and he getting older every year,” Mrs. Freeman
Burton of Oakwood said, as on a bright October morning in the autumn
succeeding the May day when we first met with Roy, she drove her ponies
down the smooth road by the river and turned into the park at Leighton.
“Yes; it really is a shame that there is not a young and handsome
mistress to grace all this, and Georgie would be just the one if Roy
could only see it,” the lady continued to herself, as she drove to the
side door which was ajar, though there was no sign of life around the
house except the watch-dog Rover, who lay basking in the sunlight with a
beautiful Maltese kitten sleeping on his paws.

Mrs. Freeman Burton, whose husband was a Wall-street _Bull_, lived on
Madison Square in the winter, and in the summer queened it among the
lesser lights in the neighborhood of Leighton Homestead. As thought Mrs.
Freeman Burton of Oakwood, so thought Mrs. Anna Churchill of Leighton,
and as Mrs. Burton knew that Mrs. Churchill was in all respects her
equal, it came about naturally that the two ladies were on the most
intimate terms,—so intimate indeed, that Mrs. Burton, seeing no one and
hearing no one, passed into the house dragging her rich India shawl
after her and knocking at the door of her friend’s private sitting-room.
But Mrs. Churchill was up in Roy’s room in a state of great mental
distress and agitation, which Roy was trying to soothe as well as his
own condition would admit. He had been thrown from his horse only the
day before and broken his leg, and he lay in a state of great
helplessness and pain when, about half an hour before Mrs. Burton’s
call, the morning letters were brought in and he asked his mother to
read them.

There were several on business, which were soon dispatched, and then
Mrs. Churchill read one to herself from Maude Somerton, a relative of
Mr. Freeman Burton, who had spent the last summer at Oakwood, and
flirted desperately with Charlie Churchill all through his vacation. Roy
liked Maude and hoped that in time she might become his sister. Once he
said something to Charlie on the subject, hinting that if he chose to
marry Maude Somerton, and tried to do well, money should not be wanting
when it was needed to set him up in business. There had been an awkward
silence on Charlie’s part for a few moments, while he turned very red,
and seemed far more embarrassed than the occasion would warrant. Then he
had burst out with:

“Don’t you mind about Maude Somerton. She will flirt with anybody who
wears a coat; but, old Roy, maybe I shall want that money for somebody
else; or at all events want you to stand by me, and if I do, you will;
won’t you, Roy?”

And Roy, without a suspicion of his brother’s meaning, said he would,
and the next day Charlie returned to Canandaigua, while Maude went back
to her scholars about ten miles from Leighton; for she was poor, and
earned her own livelihood. But for her poverty she made amends in the
quality of her blood, which was the very best New England could produce;
and as she was fair, and sweet, and pure as the white pond-lilies of her
native State, Mrs. Freeman Burton gave her a home at Oakwood, and gave
her Georgie’s cast-off clothing, and would very much have liked to give
her Charlie Churchill, after she heard that Roy intended to do something
for his brother whenever he was married.

Maude’s letter was a very warm, gushing epistle, full of kind
remembrances of Roy, “the best man in the world,” and inquiries after
Charlie, “the nicest kind of a summer beau,” and professions of
friendship for Mrs. Churchill, “the dear sweet lady, whose kindnesses
could never be forgotten.”

“Maude writes a very good letter,” Mrs. Churchill said, folding it up
and laying it on the table, and as she did so, discovering another which
had fallen from her lap to the floor.

It was from Charlie and directed to Roy, but Mrs. Churchill opened it,
turning first scarlet and then pale, and then gasping for breath as she
read the dreadful news. Charlie was going to be married; aye, was
married that moment, for he had named the morning of the 7th of October
as the time when Edna Browning would be his wife! At that name Mrs.
Churchill gave a little shriek, and tossed the letter to Roy, who
managed to control himself, while he read that Charlie was going to
marry Edna Browning, “the nicest girl in the whole world and the
prettiest, as Roy would think if he could see her.” They had been
engaged a long time; were engaged, in fact, when Roy and his mother were
in Canandaigua, and he would have told them then, perhaps, if his mother
had not asked who “that brazen-faced thing” was, or something like it,
when they passed the seminary girls in driving.

“Mother means well enough, I suppose,” Charlie wrote, “but she is too
confounded proud, and if I had told her about Edna, she would have
raised the greatest kind of a row, for Edna is poor as a church
mouse,—hasn’t a penny in the world, and nobody but an old maid aunt who
lives in Richmond, and treats her like a dog. Her father was an
Episcopal clergyman and her mother was a music teacher, and that’s all I
know of her family, or care. I love her, and that’s enough. I s’pose I
may as well make a clean breast of it, and tell you I’ve had a fuss with
one of the teachers; and I wouldn’t wonder if they expelled me, and so
I’ve concluded to take time by the forelock, and have quit on my own
hook, and have persuaded Edna to cast in her lot with mine, a little
sooner than she had agreed to do. They wrote to you about the fuss, but
I paid the man who carries the letters to the office five dollars for
the one directed to you, as I’d rather tell you myself, and it gives me
time, too, for this other matter in hand. Fortune favors the brave. Edna
went yesterday to Buffalo with her room-mate, who is sick, and wanted
her to go home with her; and I am going up to-morrow, and Wednesday
morning, the 7th, we shall be married, and take the early train for
Chicago, where Edna has some connection living.

“And now, Roy, I want some money,—there’s a good fellow. You remember
you spoke of my marrying Maude Somerton, and said you’d give me money
and stand by me, too. Do it now, Roy, and when mother goes into
hysterics and calls Edna _that creature_, and talks as if she had
persuaded me, whereas it was I who persuaded her, say a word for me,
won’t you? You will like Edna,—and, Roy, I want you to ask us to come
home, for a spell, anyway. The fact is, I’ve romanced a little, and Edna
thinks I am heir, or at least joint heir with you, of Leighton
Homestead. She don’t know I haven’t a cent in the world but what comes
from you, and I don’t want her to. Set me up in business, Roy, and I’ll
work like a hero. I will, upon my word,—and please send me five hundred
at once to the care of John Dana, Chicago. I shall be married and gone
before this reaches you, so there’s no use for mother to tear her eyes
out. Tell her not to. I’m sorry to vex her, for she’s been a good
mother, and after Edna I love her and you best of all the world. Send
the money, do. Yours truly,

                                                              “CHARLIE.”

This was the letter which created so much consternation at Leighton
Homestead, and made Mrs. Churchill faint with anger, while Roy’s pale
face flushed crimson and the great drops of sweat stood on his forehead.
That Charlie should be disgraced in school was bad enough, but that to
the disgrace he should add the rash, imprudent act of marrying, was far
worse,—even if the girl he married had been in all respects his equal.
Of that last, Roy did not think as much as his mother. He knew Charlie
better than she did, and felt that almost any respectable girl was good
enough for him; but it did strike him a little unpleasantly that the
Edna Browning, whose caricature of himself was still preserved, should
become his sister-in-law. He knew it was she,—the girl in the cars, and
his mother knew it too. She had never forgotten the girl, nor could she
shake off the impression that Charlie knew more of her than she would
like to believe. For this reason she had favored his flirting with Maude
Somerton, who, though poor, was highly connected, which was more than
could be said for Edna.

During the summer, there had been at Oakwood a Miss Rolliston, a friend
of Maude Somerton, and a recent graduate of Canandaigua Seminary. And
without seeming to be particularly interested, Mrs. Churchill had
learned something of Edna Browning, “whom she once met somewhere” she
said. “Did Miss Rolliston know her?”

“Oh, yes, a bright little thing, whom all the girls liked, though she
was only a charity scholar, that is, she was to teach for a time in the
Seminary to pay for her education.”

“Indeed; has she no friends?” Mrs. Churchill asked, and Miss Rolliston
replied: “None but an aunt, a Miss Jerusha Pepper, who, if rumor is
correct, led her niece a sorry life.”

It was about this time that Charlie commenced flirting so desperately
with Maude Somerton, and so Mrs. Churchill for a time forget Edna
Browning, and what Miss Rolliston had said of her. But it came back to
her now, and she repeated it to Roy, who did not seem as much impressed
with Miss Pepper and the charity scholar part as his mother would like
to have had him. Perhaps he was thinking of Charlie’s words, “You’ll
stand by me, won’t you, old Roy,” and rightly guessing now that they had
reference to Edna Browning. And perhaps, too, the shadow of the fearful
tragedy so soon to follow was around him, pleading for his young brother
whose face he would never see again.

“What shall we do? What can we do?” his mother asked, and he replied:

“We must make the best of it, and send him the money.”

“But, Roy, the disgrace; think of it,—an elopement; a charity scholar, a
niece of Miss Jerusha Pepper, whoever she may be. I’ll never receive
her, and I shall write and tell her so.”

“No, mother, you’ll do nothing of the kind,” Roy said; “Charlie is still
your boy, and Edna is his wife. She is not to blame for being poor or
for having an aunt with that horrible name. Write and tell them to come
home. The house is large enough. Maybe you will like this Edna
Browning.”

Before Mrs. Churchill could reply, Mrs. Burton’s card was brought to
her, and to that lady as her confidential friend did the aggrieved
mother unbosom herself, telling all she knew of Edna, and asking what
she should do. Mrs. Burton sat a moment thinking, as if the subject
demanded the most profound and careful attention, and then said:

“I hardly know how to advise; different people feel so differently. If
it were my son I should not invite him home, at present. Let him suffer
awhile for his misdeed. He ought to be punished.”

“Yes, and he will be punished, when he comes to his senses and sees what
a _mésalliance_ he has made, though of course she enticed him,” Mrs.
Churchill said, her mother’s heart pleading for her boy; whereas Mrs.
Burton, who had never been a mother, and who felt a little piqued that
after knowing Maude Somerton, Charlie could have chosen so unwisely, was
very severe in her condemnation of both parties, and spoke her mind
freely.

“Probably this Browning girl did entice him, but he should not have
yielded, and he must expect to pay the penalty. I, for one, cannot
promise to receive her on terms of equality; and Georgie, I am sure,
will not, she is so fastidious and particular. Maybe she will see them.
Did I tell you she had gone West?—started yesterday morning on the early
train? She expected to be in Buffalo last night, and take this morning’s
train for Chicago, where she is going to see a child, a relative of her
step-mother, who died not long since. I am sorry she happens to be gone
just now, when Roy is so helpless. She could read to him, and amuse him
so much.”

It was evident that Mrs. Burton was thinking far more of Georgie than of
her friend’s trouble; but the few words she had spoken on the subject
had settled the matter and changed the whole current of Edna Browning’s
life, and when, at last, she took her leave, and went out to her
carriage, Mrs. Churchill had resolved _to do her duty_, and set her
son’s sins before him in their proper light.

But she did not tell Roy so. She would rather he should not know all she
had been saying to Mrs. Burton.

So to his suggestion that she should write to Charlie that day, she
answered that she would, but added:

“I can’t write a lie, and tell him he will be welcome here at once. I
must wait awhile before doing that.”

To this Roy did not object. A little discipline would do Charlie good,
he believed; and so he signed a check for five hundred dollars, and then
tried to sleep, while his mother wrote to Charlie. It was a severe
letter, aimed more at Edna than her boy, and told of her astonishment
and indignation that her son should have been led into so imprudent an
act. Then she descanted upon runaway matches, and unequal matches; and
said he must expect it would be a long time before she could forgive
him, or receive “Miss Browning” as her daughter. Then she quoted Mrs.
Burton, and Georgie, and Roy, whose feelings were _so outraged_, and
advised Charlie to tell Miss Browning at once that every dollar he had
came from his brother; “for,” she added in conclusion,

“I cannot help feeling that if she had known this fact, your unfortunate
entanglement would have been prevented.

“Your aggrieved and offended mother,

                                                       “ANNA CHURCHILL.”


She did not show what she had written to Roy, but she inclosed the
check, and directed the letter to “Charles Augustus Churchill. Care of
John Dana, Chicago, Ill.” With no apparent reason, Mrs. Churchill
lingered long over that letter, studying the name “Charles Augustus,”
and repeating it softly to herself, as we repeat the names of the dead.
And when, at last, she gave it to Russell to post, she did it
unwillingly, half wishing, when it was gone past recall, that she had
not written quite so harshly to her boy, whose face haunted her that day
wherever she went, and whose voice she seemed to hear everywhere calling
to her.

With the waning of the day, the brightness of the early morning
disappeared, and the night closed in dark and dreary, with a driving
rain and a howling wind, which swept past Mrs. Churchill’s windows, and
seemed screaming Charlie’s name in her ears as she tried in vain to
sleep. At last, rising from her bed and throwing on her dressing-gown,
she walked to the window and looked out into the night, wondering at the
strange feeling of fear as of some impending evil stealing over her. The
rain was over, and the breaking clouds were scudding before the wind,
which still blew in fitful gusts, while the moon showed itself
occasionally through an angry sky, and cast a kind of weird light upon
the grounds below, the flower-beds, and statuary, which reminded Mrs.
Churchill of gravestones, and made her turn away at last with a shudder.
Then her thoughts went again after Charlie, and something drew her to
her knees as she prayed for him; but said no word for Edna, the young
girl-wife, whose sun of happiness was setting in a night of sorrow,
darker and more terrible than anything of which she had ever dreamed.




                              CHAPTER III.
                          GEORGIE’S TELEGRAM.


There was no trace of the storm next morning, except in the drops of
rain which glittered on the shrubs and flowers, and the soaked condition
of the walks and carriage-road. The sun came up bright and warm again,
and by noon the hill-tops in the distance showed that purplish haze so
common to the glorious October days. Everything about Leighton Homestead
was quiet and peaceful, and in nothing was there a sign of the terrible
calamity already passed, but as yet a _secret_ to the mother, whose
nameless terror of the previous night had faded with returning day. She
was in Roy’s room, where a cheerful fire was blazing to counteract any
chill or damp which might creep in through the open window. They had had
their early lunch, and Roy was settling himself to sleep when Russell
appeared, bearing a telegram, a missive which seldom fails to set one’s
heart to throbbing with a dread of what it may have to tell. It was
directed to Roy, but Mrs. Churchill opened it and read it, and then,
with an agonizing shriek, fell forward upon Roy’s pillow, moaning
bitterly:

“Oh, Roy, my Charlie is dead,—my Charlie is dead!”

She claimed him for all her own then. It was _my_ Charlie, her
fatherless one, her youngest-born, her baby, who was dead; and the blow
cut deep and cruelly, and made her writhe in agony as she kept up the
faint, moaning sound,—“My Charlie, my boy.”

She had dropped the telegram upon the floor, but Russell picked it up
and handed it to Roy, who read:


“There has been a railroad accident, and Charlie is dead. His wife
slightly injured. I await your orders.”

                                                    “GEORGIE L. BURTON.”


When Roy read his brother’s letter the day before, there had been great
drops of sweat upon his brow; but now his face was pale as death, and
the tears poured over it like rain, as he held the paper in his hand and
tried to realize the terrible sorrow which had fallen so suddenly upon
him. The telegram was dated at Iona, a little town between Cleveland and
Chicago, and nearer to the latter place. Georgie had said: “I await your
orders,” and that brought Roy from his own grief to the necessity of
acting. Somebody must go and bring poor Charlie home; and as Roy was
disabled, the task would devolve on Russell, the head servant at
Leighton, who had been in the family for years. With a grave bow he
received his orders, and the next train which left the Leighton depot
carried him in it, while four or five hours later, Miss Burton, to whom
Russell had telegraphed at once, read that “Russell would start
immediately for Iona.”

Stunned and utterly helpless, Mrs. Churchill could only moan and weep,
as her maid led her to her room and made her lie down upon the bed. She
was a good woman at heart, in spite of the foibles and errors which
appeared on the surface, and far greater than her sorrow for her own
loss was her anxiety for her boy’s future. Was it well with him? Would
she ever meet him again, should she be so fortunate as to gain heaven
herself? She had taught him to pray, and back through the years which
lay between that dreadful day and his childhood, her thoughts went
swiftly, and she seemed to see again the fair head resting on her lap
and hear the dear voice lisping the words “Our Father,” or, “Jesus,
gentle Shepherd, hear me,” which last had been Charlie’s favorite
prayer. But he was a child then, a baby. He had grown to manhood since,
and she could not tell if latterly he ever prayed; and if not, oh, where
was he that autumn day, whose mellow beauty seemed to mock her woe, as,
in the home to which he would never come alive, she made bitter mourning
for him. Suddenly, amid her pain, she remembered the previous night when
she had prayed so earnestly for her boy. Perhaps God had saved him for
the sake of that prayer; His love and mercy were infinite, and she would
trust it all to Him, hoping that as He saved the thief on the cross, so
from Charlie’s lips in the moment of peril there had gone up a prayer so
sincere, and full of penitence and faith, that God had heard and
answered, and had her boy safe with Him. “If I only knew it was so,” she
moaned; but alas! she did _not_ know, and her soul cried out for sight
and knowledge, just as many a bleeding heart has cried out for some word
or token to make belief a certainty. But to such cries there comes no
answer back; the grave remains unopened; the mystery unexplained, and
we, whose streaming eyes would fain pierce the darkness, and see if our
loved ones are safe, must still trust it all to God, and walk yet a
while by faith, as poor Mrs. Churchill tried to do, even when she had so
little to build her faith upon.

They sent for Mrs. Burton, who came at once and did what she could to
soothe and quiet her friend.

“It was such a comfort to know Georgie was there, and so providential
too,” she said, and then she asked if “that girl was hurt.”

Mrs. Churchill knew she meant Edna, and answered faintly: “Slightly
injured, the telegram said,” and that was all that passed between her
and her friend respecting _that girl_. Mrs. Churchill could only think
of Edna as one who in some way was instrumental in Charlie’s death. If
she had not enticed him, he would not have done what he did, and
consequently would not at that moment have been lying where he was, with
all his boyish beauty marred and disfigured, until his mother would not
have known him. It was the evening paper which had that last in it, and
gave an account of the accident, which was caused by a broken rail. The
car in which Charlie and Edna were had been thrown down an embankment,
and five of the passengers killed. Special mention was made of the young
man who had been married in the morning, and though no name was given,
Mrs. Churchill knew who it was, and wept piteously as she listened to
Mrs. Burton reading the article to her.

Of Edna, however, she scarcely thought; Edna, the bride, who, the paper
stated, seemed perfectly stunned with horror. No one thought of her
until Maude Somerton came. She had heard of the accident, and as
Saturday was always a holiday with her, she came on Friday night to
Leighton, and brought with her a world of comfort, though Mrs.
Churchill’s tears flowed afresh at sight of the girl who, she had
fancied, might one day be her daughter.

“Oh, Maude, my child,” she said, as Maude bent over her. “He’s gone, our
Charlie. You were a good friend of his, and I once hoped you might—”

“Let me bathe your head. It is very hot, and aches, I know,” Maude said,
interrupting her, for she guessed what Mrs. Churchill was about to say,
and did not care to hear it.

She had found it vastly pleasant to flirt with Charlie Churchill, but
when the excitement was over, and she was back again in the school-room
with her restless, active pupils, she scarcely thought of him until the
news of his sudden death recalled him to her mind. That he was married
did surprise her a little, and deep down in her heart there might have
been a pang of mortified vanity that she had been so soon forgotten
after all those walks upon the mountain side, and those moonlight sails
upon the river; but she harbored no ill-will toward his wife, and almost
her first inquiries after Mrs. Churchill had grown quiet were for her.

“Is she so badly hurt, that she will not be able to come home with the
body?” she asked, and Mrs. Churchill started as if she had been stung.

“Come home! Come here! That girl! I’d never thought of that,” she
exclaimed; and then Maude knew just how “that girl” was regarded by her
husband’s mother.

She did not know how Roy felt; but she went to him next and asked if it
was not expected that _Charlie’s wife_ would come to Leighton if she was
able to travel, and Georgie’s telegram “slightly injured” would indicate
that she was. Although he knew it to be a fact, still Charlie’s _wife_
was rather mythical to Roy, and he had thought but little about her,
certainly never that she was coming there, until Maude’s question showed
him the propriety of the thing.

“Of course she will come,” he said. “I wonder if mother sent any message
by Russell. Ask her, please.”

Mrs. Churchill had sent no message. She did not think it necessary; the
girl would do as she liked, of course.

“Then she will come; I should,” Maude said; and next morning, as she
combed and brushed Mrs. Churchill’s hair, she casually asked:

“_Which_ room is to be given to Charlie’s wife?

“I thought, perhaps, she would prefer the one he used to occupy in the
north wing,” she added, “and if you like I will see that it is in
readiness for the poor girl. How I pity her, a widow in less than
twenty-four hours. And such a pretty name too,—_Edna_. Don’t you think
it is pretty?”

“Oh, child, don’t ask me. I want to do right, but I don’t like to hear
of her. It seems as if she was the means of Charlie’s death,” Mrs.
Churchill sobbed, and Maude’s soft hands moved caressingly over the
grayish-brown hair as she spoke again for the poor girl lying stunned,
and scared, and white, so many miles away.

“Charlie must have loved her very much,” she said, “or he would never
have braved your displeasure, and that of Roy. She may be a comfort to
you, who have no other daughter. I begin to feel a great interest in
her, and mean to be her friend.”

Maude had espoused Edna’s cause at once, and her heart was full of
sympathy for the poor girl, for she foresaw just how lonely and dreary
her life would be at Leighton, where every one’s hand was against her.

“Mrs. Churchill will worry and badger her, and Roy without meaning to do
it will freeze her with indifference, while Aunt Burton and Georgie will
criticise and snub her awfully,” she thought. “But I will do what I can
for her, and make her room as attractive as possible.”

So all of Saturday morning was spent by Maude in brushing up and
righting Charlie’s old room for the reception of the widowed Edna. There
were many traces of the dead in there, and Maude’s eyes were moist with
tears as she put them away, and thought how Charlie would never want
them again. It was a very pleasant room, and under Maude’s skilful hands
it looked still pleasanter and more inviting on the morning when the
party was expected.

“I mean she shall come right in here with me at once,” Maude said to
herself, as she gave the fire a little poke, and then for the fourth
time brushed the hearth and rug.

There was an easy chair before the fire, and vases of flowers on the
mantel, and bracket, and stand, and a pot of ivy stood between the
windows, the white muslin curtains of which were looped back with knots
of crape, sole sign of mourning in the room. Maude had asked her
employers for two days’ vacation, and so she was virtually mistress of
ceremonies, though Mrs. Burton bustled in and out, and gave the most
contradictory orders, and made poor Mrs. Churchill’s nerves quiver with
pain as she discussed the proper place for Charlie to be laid, and the
proper way for the funeral to be conducted.

And through it all Roy lay utterly helpless, knowing that it was not for
him to look upon his brother’s face, or to join in the last tribute of
affection paid to his memory. He knew that Maude confidently expected
that Edna was coming to Leighton, and so he supposed she was, and he
felt a good deal of curiosity with regard to the girl who had
caricatured him in a poke bonnet, and stigmatized him as a Betty. Not a
word concerning her had passed between himself and his mother since the
receipt of the telegram. Indeed, he had scarcely seen his mother, for
she had kept mostly in her room, and either Maude or Mrs. Burton had
been the medium of communication between them. The latter had indulged
in some very pious talk about resignation and all that, and then had
descanted upon Georgie’s great kindness and unselfishness in leaving her
own business, and coming back to Leighton. She knew this from the second
telegram received from Georgie, saying, “We shall reach Leighton
sometime on Monday.”

That Georgie was coming was of itself enough to take away half the pain,
and in her blind fondness for her adopted daughter, Mrs. Burton wondered
why Roy and his mother should look as white and grief-stricken as they
did that October afternoon, when the carriage was waiting at the station
for the living, and the hearse was waiting for the dead.




                              CHAPTER IV.
                                GEORGIE.


Georgie Burton was a brilliant, fascinating woman, several years older
than Maude Somerton, and wholly unlike her both in looks and
disposition. She was not only very beautiful, but she had about her an
air of culture and high breeding which would have atoned for the absence
of all beauty.

Some said her chief attraction was in her great black eyes, which were
so soft and gentle in their expression at times, and then again sparkled
and shone with excitement; while it was whispered that they could on
occasion blaze, and flash, and snap with anger and scorn.

Few, however, ever saw the flash and the blaze, and to most of the
people in the neighborhood Georgie Burton was the kind, sympathetic,
frank-hearted woman who, though a devotee of fashion, would always lend
a listening ear to a tale of woe, or step aside from her own pleasure to
minister to others.

She was very tall, and her blue-black hair fell in heavy masses of curls
about her face and neck, giving her a more youthful appearance at first
sight than a closer inspection would warrant. Her complexion, though
dark, was clear, and smooth, and bright,—so bright in fact, that there
had been whispers of artificial roses and enamel. But here rumor was
wrong. Georgie’s complexion was all her own, kept bright and fair by
every possible precaution and care. Constant exercise in the open air,
daily baths, and a total abstinence from stimulants of any kind,
together with as regular habits as her kind of life would admit, were
the only cosmetics she used, and the result proved the wisdom of her
course.

She was not Mrs. Freeman Burton’s daughter; she was her niece, and had
been adopted five years before our story opens. But never was an own and
only child loved and petted more than Mrs. Burton loved and petted the
beautiful girl, who improved so fast under the advantages given her by
her doting aunt.

For two years she had been kept in school, where she had bent every
energy of mind and body to acquiring the knowledge necessary to fit her
for the world which awaited her outside the school-room walls. And when
at last she came out _finished_, and was presented to society as Mr.
Freeman Burton’s daughter and heir, she became a belle at once; and for
three years had kept her ground without yielding an inch to any rival.

To Mr. Burton she was kind and affectionate, and he would have missed
her very much from his household; while to Mrs. Burton she was the
loving, gentle, obedient daughter, who knew no will save that of her
mother.

“A perfect angel of sweetness,” Mrs. Burton called her, and no person
was tolerated who did not tacitly, at least, accord to Georgie all the
virtues it was possible for one woman to possess. The relations between
Maude and Georgie were kind and friendly, but not at all familiar or
intimate. Georgie was too reserved and reticent with regard to herself
and her affairs to admit of her being on very confidential terms with
any one, and so Maude knew very little of her real character, and
nothing whatever of her life before she came to live with her aunt,
except what she learned from Mrs. Burton, who sometimes talked of her
only sister, Georgie’s mother, and of the life of comparative poverty
from which she had rescued her niece. At these times Georgie would sit
motionless as a statue, with her hands locked together, and a peculiar
expression in her black eyes, which seemed to be looking far away at
something seen only to herself. She was not at all communicative, and
even her aunt did not know exactly what the business was which had
called her so suddenly to Chicago; but she was aware that it concerned
some child, and that she had left it undone and turned back with
Charlie; and when at last she came and was ushered into Mrs. Churchill’s
room, where Mrs. Burton was, both ladies called her a self-denying
angel, who always considered others before herself.

There was a flush on Georgie’s cheeks, and then her eyes went through
the window, and off across the river, with that far away, abstracted
look which Maude had noticed so often, and speculated upon, wondering of
what Georgie was thinking, and if there was anything preying upon her
mind.

Mrs. Churchill was very fond of Georgie, and she held her hand fast
locked in her own, and listened with painful heart-throbs while she told
what she knew of the terrible disaster which had resulted in Charlie’s
lying so cold and dead in the room below.

“I left Buffalo the same morning Charlie did,” she said, “but did not
know he was on the train until the accident.”

“Were you alone?” Mrs. Churchill asked.

“No. You remember my half-brother Jack, who was at Oakwood two years
ago; he met me in Buffalo, and after the accident remembered having seen
some one in the front car who reminded him of Charlie, but it never
occurred to him that it could be he until he found him dead.”

Here Georgie paused, and wiped away Mrs. Churchill’s tears and smoothed
her hair, and then continued her story: “It was a stormy night, a
regular thunder-storm, and the rain was falling in torrents when the
crash came, and I found myself upon my face with Jack under me, while
all around was darkness and confusion, with horrible shrieks and cries
of terror and distress. Our car was only thrown on one side, while the
one Charlie was in was precipitated down the bank, and it was a miracle
that any one escaped. Charlie was dead when Jack reached him; he must
have died instantly, they said, and there is some comfort in that. They
carried him into a house not far from the track, and I saw that his body
had every possible care. I thought you would like it.”

“I do, I do. You are an angel. Go on,” Mrs. Churchill said, and Georgie
continued:

“There’s not much more to tell of Charlie. I had his body packed in ice
till Russell came, and then we brought him home.”

“But _Edna_, his wife, _Mrs. Charlie Churchill_, where is she? What of
her? And why didn’t she come with you?”

It was Maude who asked these questions; Maude, who, when the carriage
came, had stood ready to meet the “girl-widow,” as she mentally styled
her, and lead her to her room. But there was no Edna there, and to the
eager questionings Maude had put to Russell the moment she could claim
his attention, that dignitary had answered gravely:

“You must ask Miss Burton. She managed that matter.”

So Maude ran up the stairs to Mrs. Churchill’s room, which she entered
in time to hear the last of Georgie’s story, and where she startled the
inmates with her vehement inquiries for Edna. Mrs. Churchill had not yet
mentioned her name, and it did not seem to her that she had any part or
right in that lifeless form downstairs, or any claim upon her sympathy.
Her presence, therefore, would have been felt as an intrusion, and
though she had made up her mind to endure it, she breathed freer when
she knew Edna had not come. The name, “Mrs. Charlie Churchill,” shocked
her a little, but she listened anxiously to what Georgie had to say of
her.

“Hush, Maude, how impetuous you are; perhaps poor Mrs. Churchill cannot
bear any more just now,” Georgie said, and Mrs. Churchill replied:

“Yes, tell me all about the girl. I may as well hear it now as any time.
O, my poor boy, that he should have thrown himself away like that.”

Georgie had her cue now, and knew just how to proceed.

“The girl was by Charlie’s side trying to extricate him, and that was
how we found out who she was and that he was married that morning. She
was slightly injured, a bruise on her head and shoulder, and arm, that
was all, and she seemed very much composed and slept very soundly a good
part of the day following. I should not think her one to be easily
excited. I did what I could for her, and spoke of her coming home with
me as a matter of course.

“She said, ‘Did they send any word to me by that gentleman?’ meaning
Russell. I questioned Russell on the subject and could not learn that
any message had been sent directly to her, and so she declined coming,
and when I asked her if she did not feel able to travel so far, she
burst out crying, and said: ‘I could endure the journey well enough,
though my head aches dreadfully, but they don’t want me there, and I
cannot go;’ a decision she persisted in to the last. She seemed a mere
child, not more than fifteen, though she said she was seventeen.”

“And did you leave her there alone?” Maude asked, her cheeks burning
with excitement, for she had detected the spirit of indifference
breathing in every word Georgie had said of Edna, and resented it
accordingly.

Edna had a champion in Maude, and Georgie knew it, and her eyes rested
very calmly on the girl as she replied:

“I telegraphed to her aunt, a Miss Jerusha Pepper, who lives near
Canandaigua, and also to her friends in Chicago, a Mr. and Mrs. John
Dana, and before I left Mrs. Dana came, a very plain, but perfectly
respectable appearing woman.”

“Which means, I suppose, that you do not think she would steal, or pick
a man’s pocket, unless sorely pressed,” Maude broke in vehemently. “For
goodness’ sake, Georgie, put off that lofty way of talking as if poor
Edna was outside the pale of humanity, and her friends barely
respectable. I am sorry for her, and I wish she was here, and I want to
know if you left her with any one who will be kind to her, and say a
comforting word.”

“Maude, have you forgotten yourself, that you speak so to Georgie in
Mrs. Churchill’s and my presence?” Mrs. Burton said reprovingly, while
Mrs. Churchill looked bewildered, as if she hardly knew what it was all
about, or for whom Maude was doing battle.

In no wise disconcerted, Georgie continued in the same cool strain:

“This Mrs. Dana I told you of, seemed very kind to her, and I think the
girl felt better with her than she would with us. She was going to
Chicago with Mrs. Dana, and Jack was going with them. You remember
Jack?”

Yes, Maude did remember Jack, the great, big-hearted fellow, who had
been at Oakwood for a few weeks, two years before, and whom Georgie had
kept in the background as much as possible, notwithstanding that she
petted and caressed, and made much of him, and called him “Jackey” and
“dear Jack,” when none but the family were present to see him and know
he was her half-brother.

“So good in Georgie, and shows such an admirable principle in her not to
be ashamed of that great good-natured bear of a fellow,” Mrs. Burton had
said to Maude; and Maude, remembering the times when the “great,
good-natured bear of a fellow” had been introduced to any of Georgie’s
fashionable friends who chanced to stumble upon him, simply as “Mr.
Heyford,” and not as “my brother,” had her own opinion upon that subject
as upon many others.

She had liked Jack Heyford very much, and felt that he was a man to be
trusted in any emergency, and when she heard that Edna was with him, she
said impulsively:

“I know she is safe if Mr. Heyford has her in charge. I would trust him
sooner than any man I ever saw, and know I should not be deceived.”

“You might do that, Maude, you might. Jack is the truest, noblest of
men,” Georgie said, and her voice trembled as she said it, while Maude
actually thought a tear glittered in her black eyes, as she paid this
unwonted tribute to her brother.

“That reminds me;” said Mrs. Burton, wiping her own eyes from sympathy
with Georgie’s emotion, “what about that little child, and what will
your brother do, as you did not go on with him?”

The dewy look in Georgie’s eye was gone in a moment, and in its place
there came a strange gleam, half pain and half remorse, as she answered:

“I shall go to Chicago in a few days.”

“Is that necessary?” Mrs. Burton asked, and Georgie replied:

“Yes, the child keeps asking for _me_, and I must go.”

“What child?” Maude asked, with her usual impulsiveness.

There was a quivering of the muscles around Georgie’s mouth, and a
spasmodic fluttering of her white throat, as if the words she was going
to utter were hard to say; then, with her face turned away from Maude’s
clear, honest blue eyes, she said very calmly:

“It is a little girl my step-mother adopted. Her name is Annie, and she
always calls Jack brother, and me her sister Georgie. Perhaps mamma told
you my step-mother had recently died.”

“No, she didn’t. I’d forgotten you had a step-mother living,” Maude
said, and Georgie continued:

“Yes, Jack’s mother, you know. She died a month or so ago, and this
child met with an accident,—hurt her back or hip, and it was to see her
that I was going to Chicago.”

Georgie finished her statement quietly, and then, turning to Mrs.
Churchill, asked if she should not again wet the napkin and bathe her
head and face. She was very calm and collected, and her white hands
moved gently over Mrs. Churchill’s hot, flushed face, until she declared
herself better, and bade Georgie go and rest herself. Georgie was not
tired, and said she would just look in upon Roy, to whom she repeated,
in substance, what she had told his mother of the dreadful accident. Roy
had heard the most of the particulars from Russell, but they gained new
force and interest when told by the beautiful Georgie, whose voice was
so low, and tender, and sorrowful, and whose long lashes, half veiling
the soft eyes, were moist with tears as she spoke of “dear Charlie and
his poor young girl-wife.” That was what she called her when with Roy,
not “the girl,” but “his poor young girl-wife.” She had seen at once
that with Roy she must adopt a different tone with regard to Edna, for
Roy was eager in his inquiries and sorry that she had not come to
Leighton, “her proper place,” he said.

Georgie tried to be open and fair with Roy, who, she knew, hated a lie
or anything approaching it, and so she incidentally mentioned the nature
of her business to Chicago, and told of the recent death of her
step-mother, of whom Mr. Leighton had, of course, heard. Roy could not
remember, but supposed he had, and then Georgie told him of little Annie
Heyford, her adopted sister, and said she must still go and see to her.
And Roy thought how kind she was, and hoped the little Annie would not
suffer for her absence, or her brother be greatly inconvenienced.
Georgie reassured him on both points, and then, as he seemed to be very
tired and his limb was beginning to pain him, she left him for a time,
and returned to Mrs. Churchill.




                               CHAPTER V.
                            ROY’S DECISION.


During the time we have been introducing Georgie Burton, poor Charlie
lay in the little reception room below, with the terrible bruises on his
face, and the night fell darkly around Leighton Place, and the stars
came out and looked down into the open grave, where, early the next
morning, they buried the young man who had been the darling of his
mother, and a sad trial in so many ways to his only brother.

But Roy forgot all that now; and, as he lay helpless upon his bed and
heard the roll of wheels which carried Charlie away, he wept like a
child, and wished so much that no harsh word had ever been spoken by him
to the boy whose face he would never see again.

And then his thoughts went after the young girl who had been Charlie’s
wife for only a few short hours. He could be kind to her, and he would,
for Charlie’s sake, and thus atone for any undue severity he might have
shown his brother.

“As soon as I am able, I will go after her, and bring her home with me,”
he said to himself, and he tried to recall her face as he had seen it in
the car, wondering if he should know her.

She had curls, he knew; for he remembered just how they were tossed
about by the wind; and her eyes were large, and bright, and brown he
thought, though he was not positive. At all events, they were handsome
eyes, and he believed Edna was handsome, too; and perhaps he should like
her very much. And then, as he heard a sweet, cooing voice in the hall,
telling Mrs. Churchill’s maid that her mistress wanted her, he found
himself wondering how Georgie and Edna would suit each other in case it
came about that _both_ should live at Leighton. He had heard so much
said with regard to his making Miss Burton his wife, that he had come to
think he might possibly do so some day, but there was no special cause
for haste; at least, there had been none up to the present time. But if
Edna came there to live, he felt that it might be well to have a younger
mistress in the house,—one who would brighten up matters, and make life
a little gayer than his mother, with her old-fashioned, quiet ways, was
inclined to do.

Could Roy have had his choice he would rather not have had a change, for
he greatly enjoyed his present mode of living, and his entire freedom to
do as he pleased without consulting the wishes of any one. And yet he
was not naturally selfish. He had only grown so from living so much
alone with his mother and having all his tastes consulted and deferred
to. A wife would have made a far different man of him, and have found
him the kindest, most thoughtful of husbands. He had liked Georgie since
she first came to Oakwood, and he thought her very kind and
self-sacrificing to leave her own matters and come there to comfort his
mother, who, as soon as the funeral was over, went to her bed, where she
was cared for by Georgie with a daughter’s tenderness.

When at last quiet had settled around the house, and the day was drawing
to a close, Georgie left her patient for a little and went to see how it
fared with Roy. His limb was paining him more than usual, for a storm
was gathering, and the day had been long and trying, with no one to talk
to but Russell and the doctor. Thus Georgie’s visit was well timed, and
she had never seemed so lovely to Roy, even when arrayed in full party
splendor, as she did now in her plain dress of black alpaca, with a
simple white linen band at her throat and linen cuffs at her wrist. She
had dressed thus in honor of Charlie’s funeral, and in her nun-like garb
she seemed to belong to the house and be a part of the family. Her curls
were put up under a net, but one or two of them had escaped from their
confinement and almost touched Roy’s face as she bent over him asking
how he felt and what she could do for him.

She made his pillow more comfortable and pulled the covering smoothly
around him, and pushed back a stray lock of hair which persisted in
falling into his eyes, and made him feel so much better that by the time
she had seated herself in the chair by his side he was nearer to
speaking the words she had waited so long to hear than he had ever been
before. But first he would talk with her a little about Edna, and see
what she thought of his going after her or sending for her to come at
once. Georgie, however, did not approve of Edna’s coming. “Under some
circumstances it would be very pleasant for you to have her here, and it
would be so nice for Edna,” she said in her softest, mellowest tones,
“but just at present I do not believe it is best. Your mother is too
much grieved and crushed to reason correctly on anything, and I fear the
presence of Charlie’s wife would make her very wretched. She cannot help
it, I dare say, but she charges Charlie’s death to Edna, and under these
circumstances neither could at present be happy with the other. By and
by it will be different of course, and then it may be well to consider
the matter again. Pardon me, Mr. Leighton, if I have said too much, but
your mother is so brokenhearted that I would not for the world have a
drop added to her cup of sorrow. I am so sorry for Edna too. Poor girl!
but she is young, you know, and can bear it better.”

Georgie was very gentle, and her voice had trembled just as much when
speaking of Edna as when talking of his mother, and Roy was wholly
convinced, and thought it might be better not to send for Edna, but let
his mother have time to overcome her aversion to the girl.

It was better also to give himself a little longer space of freedom as a
bachelor; for if Edna did not come, there was no immediate necessity for
him to take a wife to make the house inviting. He and his mother could
still live on in their quiet way, which he enjoyed so much, and felt
that he enjoyed all the more from the fact that he had come so near
losing it; so he did not speak to Georgie then, but it was arranged that
when she went to Chicago she should find Edna, and do for her whatever
needed to be done, and ascertain if she cared to come to Leighton.

“I must trust it all to your management, for I am helpless myself,” Roy
said, offering his hand to Georgie, as she arose to leave the room. “Try
and overcome mother’s prejudice against Edna, won’t you? Women have a
way of doing these things which men know nothing about. Mother thinks
the world of you; so do your best to bring her round, will you?”

Georgie’s hand, though not very small, was soft, and white, and pretty,
and Roy involuntarily pressed it a little, as he asked its owner to “try
and bring his mother round.”

And Georgie promised that she would, and then went away from Roy, who,
in the gathering twilight, tried to imagine how the house would seem
with that queenly woman there as its mistress, and while speculating
upon it fell asleep, and dreamed that Edna Browning was freezing him to
death with open windows, and tying a poke bonnet under his chin.




                              CHAPTER VI.
                             NEWS OF EDNA.


Mrs. Churchill had never been strong, and the suddenness of her son’s
death, together with the manner in which it occurred, shocked her
nervous system to such an extent that for weeks she kept her room,
seeing scarcely any one outside her own family except Mrs. Burton and
Georgie.

As another proof of her utter unselfishness, Georgie had postponed her
Chicago trip for an indefinite time, and devoted herself to Mrs.
Churchill with all a daughter’s love and care.

But alas for Edna! Her case was not in the best of hands; indeed, Roy
could hardly have chosen one more unlikely to “bring his mother round”
than Georgie Burton. That Edna would be in her way at Leighton, Georgie
had decided from the moment she had looked upon the great, sad eyes
brimming with tears, and the childish mouth, quivering in a way which
made her big-hearted brother Jack long to kiss the grief away and fold
the little creature in his arms as a mother would her child.

She seemed a mere child to both Jack and Georgie, the latter of whom in
her surprise at hearing she was Charlie Churchill’s wife had asked how
old she was.

“Seventeen last May,” was the reply, and Georgie thought with a sigh of
the years which lay between herself and that sweet age of girlhood.

Roy liked young girls, she had heard him say so, and knew that he
treated Maude Somerton, of nineteen, with far more familiarity than he
did Georgie Burton, of,—she never told how many years. And Roy would
like Edna, first as a sister and then, perhaps, as something nearer, for
that the girl was artful and ambitious, she did not doubt, and to have
her at Leighton was far too dangerous an experiment. In this conviction
she was strengthened after her talk with Roy, and whenever Mrs.
Churchill mentioned her, as she frequently did, wondering what she would
do, Georgie always made some reply calculated to put down any feelings
of pity or interest which might be springing up in the mother’s heart.
But she never said a word _against_ Edna; everything was in her favor,
and still she managed to harm her just the same, and to impress Mrs.
Churchill with the idea that she could not have her there, and so the
tide was setting in strongly against poor, widowed, friendless Edna.

It was two weeks now since the accident, and through Jack Heyford,
Georgie had heard that she was in Chicago with Mrs. Dana, that she had
been and still was sick, and Jack didn’t know what she was going to do
if the Leightons did not help her. Georgie did not read this letter
either to Roy or his mother. She merely said that Jack had seen Edna,
who was still with Mrs. Dana.

“Does he write what she intends doing?” Roy asked, and Georgie replied
that he did not, and then Roy fell into a fit of musing, and was glad he
had sent Charlie five hundred dollars, and he wished he had made the
check larger, as he certainly would have done had he known what was to
follow.

“Poor Charlie!” he sighed. “He made me a world of trouble, but I wish I
had him back;” and then he remembered the unpaid bills sent to him from
Canandaigua since his brother’s death, and of which his mother must not
know, as some of them were contracted for Edna.

There was a jeweller’s bill for the wedding ring, and a set of coral,
with gold watch and chain, the whole amounting to two hundred dollars.
And Roy paid it, and felt glad that Edna had the watch, and hoped it was
pretty, and wished Charlie had chosen a more expensive one.

He was beginning to feel greatly interested in this unknown sister, and
was thinking intently of her one morning, when Russell brought him his
letters, one of which was from Edna herself. Hastily tearing it open he
read:


“Mr. Robert Leighton: Dear Sir,—Please find inclosed $300 of the $500
you sent to Charlie.

“I should not have kept any of the money, only there were some expenses
to pay, and I was sick and had not anything. As soon as I get well and
can find something to do, I shall pay it all back with interest. Believe
me, Mr. Leighton, I certainly will.

                                                           Yours truly,
                                               “EDNA BROWNING CHURCHILL.

“P.S.—You will find my note inclosed.”


And there, sure enough, it was, Edna’s note to Robert Leighton, Esq.:


                                              “CHICAGO, October 18, 18—.

“For value received I promise to pay to Robert Leighton, or bearer, the
sum of two hundred dollars, with interest at seven per cent per annum,
from date.

                                              “EDNA BROWNING CHURCHILL.”


Roy read these lines more than once, and his eyes were moist with tears
as he said aloud:

“Brave little woman. I like you now, if I never did before.”

He did not want the money; he wished in his heart that Edna had it, and
more too; and yet he was in some way glad she had sent it back and
written him that letter, which gave him an insight into her character.
She was not a mere saucy, frolicsome girl, given to making caricatures
of men in poke bonnets; there was about her a courage and energy, and
strict integrity, which he liked, and he felt some curiosity to know if
she _would_ pay the two hundred dollars as she had promised to do.

“I believe I’ll let her alone for a while till I see what is in her,” he
said, “and, when I am satisfied, I’ll go for her myself and bring her
home. My broken leg will be well long before she can earn that money.
Brave little woman!”

Roy sent this letter to his mother but withheld the one which came to
him next day from Edna, full of intense mortification and earnest
entreaties that he would not think her base enough to have accepted
Charlie’s presents if she had known they were not paid for. Somebody had
written to her that the jeweller in Canandaigua had a bill against
Charlie for a watch and chain, and coral set, which had been bought with
promise of immediate payment.

“They say the bill will be sent to you,” Edna wrote, “and then you will
despise me more than you do now, perhaps. But, Mr. Leighton, I did _not_
dream of such a thing. Charlie gave them to me the morning we were
married, and I did not think it wrong to take them then. I never took
anything before, except a little locket with Charlie’s face in it. If
you have not paid that bill, please don’t. I can manage it somehow. I
know Mr. Greenough, and he’ll take the things back, perhaps. But if you
have already paid it I shall pay you. Don’t think I won’t, for I
certainly shall. I can work and earn money somehow. It may be a good
while, but I shall do it in time, and I want you to trust me and believe
that I never meant to be mean, or married Charlie because he had money,
for I didn’t.”

Here something was scratched out, and after it Edna wrote:


“Perhaps you will get a wrong impression if I do not make some
explanation. I did not care one bit for the money I supposed Charlie
had, but maybe if I had known he had nothing but what you gave him, I
should not have been married so soon. I should have told him to wait
till we were older and had something of our own. I am so sorry, and I
wish Mrs. Churchill had Charlie back and that I was Edna Browning. I
don’t want her to hate me, for she is Charlie’s mother, and I did love
him so much.

                                          “Yours,      E. B. CHURCHILL.”


This was Edna’s second letter to Roy, who felt the great lumps rising in
his throat as he read it, and who would like to have choked the person
who could have been malicious enough to tell Edna about those bills.

“She did not mention the ring,” he said. “I hope she knows nothing of
that.”

But Edna did know of it, and the bitterest pang of all was connected
with that golden symbol which seemed to her now like a mockery. She
could not, however, confess to Roy that her _wedding ring_ was among the
articles unpaid for, so she made no mention of it, and Roy hoped she
knew nothing of it and never would.

“I’ll write to her to-day,” he said, “and tell her to keep that watch as
a present from me, and I’ll tell her too that by and by I am coming out
to bring her home. She is made of the right kind of metal to suit me.
Brave little woman.”

This seemed to be the name by which Roy thought of Edna now, and he
repeated it to himself as he went over her letter again, and pitied her
so much, but he did not write to her that day as he intended doing. He
was rather indolent in matters not of a strictly business nature. He
hated letter-writing at any time, and especially now when exertion of
any kind was painful to him; and so the days came and went until a week
was gone, and still Edna’s letter was unanswered, and “the brave little
woman” was not quite so much in Roy’s mind, for he had other and graver
matters to occupy his attention and engross his thoughts. His mother was
very sick, and Georgie staid with her all the time, and Maude Somerton
came on Friday night and remained till Monday morning, and Roy himself
hobbled to her room on crutches, and sat beside her for hours, while the
fever burned itself out, and she talked deliriously of her lost boy and
the girl who had led him to ruin.

“That girl will have two lives to answer for instead of one, I fear,”
Georgie said, with a sorrowful shake of the head, and an appealing look
at Roy, who made no reply.

He did not charge Edna with his brother’s death, and would feel no
animosity toward her even if his mother died, but he could not then
speak for her, and brave Georgie’s look of indignation against “that
girl.” This, however, Maude Somerton did, and her blue eyes grew dark
with passionate excitement as she turned fiercely upon Georgie and said:

“Better call her a murderess at once, and have her hung as a warning to
all young girls with faces pretty enough to tempt a man to run away with
them. You know, Georgie Burton, she wasn’t a bit more to blame than
Charlie himself, and it’s a shame for one woman to speak so of another.”

To this outburst Georgie made no reply, but Roy in his heart blessed the
young girl for her defence of Edna, and made a mental memorandum of a
Christmas present he meant to buy for Maude.




                              CHAPTER VII.
                         MISS PEPPER’S LETTER.


Mrs. Churchill was better, and Georgie was talking again of going to
Chicago, and had promised to find Edna and render her any service in her
power. Roy had written to Edna at last, but no answer had come to him,
and he was beginning to wonder at her silence and to feel a little
piqued, when one day early in December Russell brought him a letter
mailed in Canandaigua and directed to his mother in a bold, angular
handwriting, which stamped the writer as a person of striking
originality and strongly marked character. In his mother’s weak state it
would not do to excite her, and so Roy opened the letter himself and
glanced at the signature:

                                        “Yours to command,
                                                “JERUSHA AMANDA PEPPER.”

And that worthy woman, who rejoiced in so euphonious a name, wrote from
her own fireside in Richmond to Mrs. Churchill, as follows:


                                        “RICHMOND, ALLEN’S HILL,
                                    “ONTARIO CO., N.Y., _Dec. 4th, 18—_.

 “MRS. CHURCHILL:

“_Dear Madam_—I’ve had it on my mind to write to you ever since that
terrible disaster by which you were deprived of a son, who was taken to
eternity without ever the chance for one last prayer or cry to be saved.
Let us hope he had made his prayers beforehand and had no need for them.
He had been baptized, I suppose, as I hear you are a church woman, but
are you High or Low? Everything to my mind depends upon that. I hold the
Low to be purely Evangelical, while the High,—well, I will not harrow up
your feelings; what I want to say is, that I do not and never have for a
single moment upheld my niece, or rather my great niece, Edna, in what
she has done. I took her from charity when her father died, although he
was _higher_ than I in his views, and we used to hold many a
controversial argument on apostolic succession, for he was a clergyman
and my sister’s son. His wife, who set up to be a lady and taught music
in our select school, died when Edna was born, and I believe went to
Heaven, though we never agreed as to the age when children should be
confirmed, nor about that word regeneration in the baptismal service. I
hold it’s a stumbling block and ought to be struck out, while she said I
did not understand its import, and confounded it with something else;
but that’s neither here nor there. Lucy was a good woman and made my
nephew a good wife, though she would keep a girl, which I never did.

“When William died, twelve years ago, I took Edna and have been a mother
to her ever since, and made her learn the catechism and creed, and
thoroughly indoctrinated her with my views, and sent her to
Sunday-school, and always gave her something from the Christmas tree,
and insisted upon her keeping all the fasts, and had her confirmed, and
she turned out High Church after all, and ran away with your son. But I
wash my hands of her now. Such a bill as I have got to pay the teachers
in the seminary for her education! It was understood that after she
graduated she was to stay there and teach to pay for her schooling, and
what does she do but run away and leave me with a bill of four hundred
dollars! Not that I can’t pay it, for I can. I’ve four times four
hundred laid up in Mr. Beals’s bank, and like an honest woman, I took it
out and paid the bill and have got the receipt in my prayer-book, and I
showed it to her, for she’s been here; yes, actually had the cheek to
come right into my house on Thanksgiving day, when I was at church; and
a good sermon we had, too, if our new minister did bow in the creed,
which rather surprised me, after telling him, as I did only the day
before, that I looked upon that ceremony as a shred, at least, if not a
rag of Popery. He lost a dollar by that bow, for I had twelve shillings
of milk-money I calculated to give him, but when he bowed over so low
right at me as if he would say, ‘You see, Miss Pepper, I’m not to be led
by the nose,’ I just put on my fifty cents, and let it go at that.

“The stage came in while I was at church; but I never thought of Edna
till I got home and smelled the turkey I had left in the oven more than
I should have smelled it if somebody hadn’t hurried up the fire; and
there was the vegetables cooking, and the table set for two; and Edna,
in her black dress, stood before the fire with her hands held tight
together, and a look on her face as if she felt she’d no business there
after all she had done.

“‘Edna Browning,’ I said, ‘what are you doing here, and how dare you
come after disgracing me so?’

“Then she said something about its being the only place she had to go
to, and my being lonely eating dinner alone Thanksgiving day, and began
to be hystericky, of course.

“If there’s anything I pride myself on more than another, it’s
_firmness_ and presence of mind, and I am happy to say I maintained them
both, though I did come near giving way, when I saw how what I said
affected her.

“I told her that to get into any family the way she did into yours was
mean and disgraceful, and said she was to blame for the young man’s
death; and asked who was to remunerate me for that four hundred dollars
I had to pay for her schooling; and who was to pay for all the trinkets
at Greenough’s in Canandaigua, and if she was not ashamed to wear a
wedding ring a stranger had to pay for.


“Up to this point, I must say Edna had not manifested much, if any
feeling, and I really felt as if she was hardened and did not care; but
when I spoke of the ring something about her made my flesh creep, and
told me I had gone far enough.

“There came a kind of pale-gray look all over her face, and a steel-gray
look in her eye, as she took off the ring and put it away in her purse,
saying, in a queer, low voice:

“‘You are right, Aunt Jerry. I am a murderess, and I ought not to wear
this ring until I have paid for it myself, and I never will.’

“She did not eat a mouthful of dinner, but with that same look in her
eyes sat staring out at a blighted rose-tree just opposite the window,
and when I asked what she saw, she answered:

“‘My future life.’

“And that was all she said till the dishes were washed and it began to
get dark. I was going to light a candle, but she turned kind of fierce
like toward me and said:

“‘Don’t, Aunt Jerry,—don’t light that candle. I like the darkness. I
want to talk to you, and I can do it better if I don’t see your face.’

“’Twas a queer notion, but I humored her, and she told me about your
son, and took all the blame to herself, and said she was sorry, and told
me of the money Mr. Leighton sent, and how much she kept, and that she
was going to pay it back.

“‘And if I live I’ll pay you that four hundred dollars too,’ she said;
and her voice was so strange that I felt shivery like, and wished the
candle was lighted. ‘I have sent Mr. Leighton my note for the first two
hundred. I shall send him another to-morrow,’ she went on, ‘and give you
one too.’

“And sure enough she did, and I have her ‘promise to pay four hundred
dollars with interest from date,’ so that makes a debt of $800 she’s
saddled herself with, and she only seventeen. And upon my word I believe
she’ll do it! She is a little bit of a girl, but there’s a sight of grit
and vim wrapped up in her, and she seemed to have grown into a woman all
at once, so that, mad as I was, I liked her better than ever I did
before.

“She staid all night, and told me that Mrs. Dana in Chicago died
suddenly from paralysis, and the husband asked _her_ to be Mrs. Dana 2d,
and take care of his little children and a baby of six months, and his
wife only dead two weeks. That started her from there, and where she is
now I know no more than the dead. She left me next morning, bag and
baggage, and when I asked where she was going, she said, ‘_to earn my
living_.’

“Then I asked if she had friends, and she said, ‘None but God,’ and
added after a minute, ‘Yes, one more, but he can’t help me.’

“Who she meant I don’t know, nor where she’s gone. I tried to make her
stay, but she said, ‘No, I am my own mistress now. Marriage has made me
that, if not my age, and I am going away;’ and she went in the stage,
and after she was gone I sat down and cried, for I felt I was a little
too hard on her, and I could not forget the look on her face as I came
in from church, nor the look as I talked to her about the ring and
killing her husband. I have no idea where she’s gone, but feel sure she
will keep out of harm. She’s been well brought up, and though some of
her notions do not suit me, she is thoroughly indoctrinated in the
truth, and will come out all right; so my advice is to let her alone for
a spell at any rate, and see what she’ll do.

“My object in writing this to you is to give you some little insight
into the character of the family you are connected with by marriage, and
to let you know I don’t take my niece’s part, although it is natural
that I should find more excuse for her than you, who probably think it a
disgrace to be connected with the _Peppers_. But, if you choose to
inquire hereabouts, you’ll find that I am greatly respected and looked
up to in the church, and if you ever come this way give me a call, and I
will do the same by you. If you feel like it, write to me, if not, not.

“Wishing you all consolation in your son’s death,

                                            “Yours to command,
                                                “JERUSHA AMANDA PEPPER.”

Roy read this letter with mingled emotions of disgust and indignation,
and finally of tolerance and even kindly feelings, toward the writer,
who had commenced with being so hard upon her niece, but had softened as
she progressed, and at last had spoken of her with a good deal of
interest and even sympathy.

“Poor little thing,” he called Edna now, and he longed to take her up in
his arms as he would a child, and comfort her. From the tenor of the
first part of Miss Pepper’s letter, he could imagine, or thought he
could, just how hard, and grim, and stern the woman was, and just how
dreary and cheerless Edna’s life had been with her.

“I don’t wonder she married the first one that offered,” he said, and
then as he recalled the man Dana, who had asked Edna to be his wife, he
felt a flush of resentment tinge his cheeks, and his fists clenched with
a desire to knock the impudent Dana down. “And it is to such insults as
these she is liable at any time; fighting her way alone in the cold,
harsh world, though, by Jove! I don’t blame her for leaving that
Pepper-corn, goading and badgering her about the ring, and murdering
Charlie. I wouldn’t have spent so much as the night there after that;
I’d have slept in the dog-kennel first.”

Roy did not stop to consider that no such luxurious appendage as a
dog-kennel was to be found on Miss Pepper’s premises. He only remembered
her cruelty to Edna, and the “pale-gray look which came into her face,”
and the “steel-gray look in her eye,” as she took off her wedding ring,
and then sat looking out at the blighted rose-tree, seeing there her
future life. Roy was not much given to poetry, or sentiment, or flowery
speeches, but he saw the connection between Edna and the blighted tree,
and knew why it should have had a greater fascination for her than her
aunt’s rasping tirade.

“She is a blighted rose herself,” he said, “or rather a blighted bud,
only seventeen, as much a girl as she ever was, a wife of a few hours, a
widow turned out into the world to shirk for herself with an assumed
debt of, let me see, that two hundred to me, four hundred more to that
miserly old sanctimonious Pepper, prating about High Church and Low, and
arrogating to herself all the piety of both parties, just because she
stands up straight as a rail during the creed, and believes Lorenzo Dow
as divinely appointed to preach as St. Peter himself; that makes six
hundred, besides that bill in Canandaigua, which Pepper says she’s
resolved to pay. Eight hundred dollars. Before she gets all that paid
there’ll be a grayer look in her eyes and on her poor little face than
there was when she looked at the blighted rose-tree. And here I have
more money than I know what to do with. I’ll go for her at once, go this
very day,” and forgetting his lame leg in his excitement, Roy sprang to
his feet, but a sharp twinge of pain brought him to his senses, and to
his chair again. “I can’t go. Confound it. I’m a cripple,” he said:
then, as he remembered that he did not know where Edna was, he groaned
aloud, and blamed himself severely for having indulged in his old habit
of procrastination, and so deferred the writing of his letter to Edna
until it was too late.

For of course she never got it. If she had, it might have changed her
whole line of conduct. At least, she would have known that she had two
friends, one Roy, and the other the one she had mentioned to her aunt as
powerless to help her. Who was he? for she distinctly said _he_. “Not
that ass of a Dana sure, else she had not fled from him and his offer,”
and with his sound leg Roy kicked a footstool as the combined
representative of the audacious Dana and Miss Jerusha Pepper. He was
glad that woman was no nearer relative to Edna than great aunt, and so
was his mother, for after his ebullition of anger was over, he decided
to take the letter to her, and tell her what Edna had written to
himself.

As Georgie was not present, there was no counter influence at work, and
Roy’s voice and manner told plainly which way he leaned.

In this state of things, Mrs. Churchill went with the tide, and cried
softly, and said there was more to Edna than she had supposed, and hoped
Roy would never take a cent of pay, and suggested his sending a check
for four hundred dollars to that abominable Pepper woman, who thought to
make friends with them by taking sides against her niece!

“She’s a perfect old shrew,—a Shylock, you may be assured, and will take
every farthing of principal and interest. Write to her now, and have it
done with.”

“And suppose I do,” said Roy; “what warrant have we that this woman will
not exact it just the same of Edna, who has no means of knowing that we
have paid it?”

“I know she will not do that,” Mrs. Churchill replied. “Disgusting as
her letter is, I think it shows her to be honest, at least. At all
events, I should test her.”

And so Roy wrote to Miss Pepper, inclosing his check for the four
hundred dollars, and asking, in return, for her receipt, and Edna’s
note. His letter was not a very cordial one, and shrewd Miss Jerusha
detected its spirit, and sent back the check forthwith, telling Roy that
she could see through a millstone any time; that it was kind in him to
offer to pay Edna’s debts, but she did not see the necessity of
insulting her with a suspicion of unfair dealing with her own flesh and
blood. She guessed he didn’t know her standing in the church, and had
better inquire next time. As for Edna, he need not worry about her. She
(Miss Pepper) did not intend to harm her. She only wanted to see how
much grit there was in the girl; and he would find sometime, perhaps,
that a Pepper could be as generous as a Leighton.

Roy could not complain of the last sentiment, for he had himself been
conscious of a desire to let Edna alone for a time, and see what was in
her. But he did not feel so now, and if he had known where she was, he
would have gone for her at once and brought her home to Leighton. But he
did not know. The last intelligence he had of her was received in a
letter mailed at Albany, two days after the date of Miss Pepper’s
effusion. In this letter, Edna wrote that she had disposed of her watch
and coral for one hundred and fifty dollars, one hundred of which she
sent to Roy, together with a second note for the remaining hundred due
for the jewelry.

“You will forgive me, Mr. Leighton, for not sending the whole. I would
do so, but I must have something to begin my new life with. I don’t
exactly know what I shall do, but think I shall teach drawing. I have
some talent for that, as well as music, and my voice is not a bad one,
they said at Canandaigua. As fast as I earn anything, I shall send you a
part of it. Mr. Leighton, I have another debt besides yours, and perhaps
you won’t mind if I try to pay that as soon as possible. It will only
make your time a little longer, and I do so much want that other one off
my mind.”

“I don’t wonder she does,” Roy said, as he finished reading the letter
to his mother, who with himself began to feel a deep interest in this
“brave little woman,” as Roy called her aloud.

“She writes a very fair hand and expresses herself well,” Mrs. Churchill
said, examining the letter, and wondering where Edna was. “We have done
our duty at all events,” she added, “and I do not think anybody could
require more of us.”

Roy did not tell all he thought. It would not have pleased his mother if
he had, and so he kept silent, while she flattered herself that they had
done every possible thing which could be expected of them. Roy had tried
to pay Edna’s debts, and that he had not done so was not his fault,
while she harbored no unkindness now toward the poor girl, she said to
Georgie Burton, who came over in the afternoon to say good-by, as she
was going to Chicago at last. Roy would never have told Georgie of
Edna’s affairs, but his mother had no concealments from her, and
repeated the whole story.

“Of course you have done your duty, and I would not give it any more
thought, but try to get well and be yourself again,” Georgie said,
kissing her friend, tenderly, and telling her of her projected journey.

Mrs. Churchill was very sorry to have Georgie go away, and Roy was,
after a fashion, sorry too, and he went down to the carriage with her,
and put her in, and drew the Affghan across her lap, and told her how
much he should miss her, and that she must make her absence as brief as
possible.

“Remember me to your brother,” he said, as he finally offered her his
hand; then after a moment he added, “I did hope to have sent some
message direct to our poor little girl. Maybe you can learn something of
her present whereabouts. I am most anxious to know where she is.”

He held Georgie’s hand all the time he was saying this, and Georgie’s
eyes were very soft and pitiful in their expression as she bade him
good-by, and promised “to find out all she could about the poor, dear
child.”




                             CHAPTER VIII.
                        THE BRAVE LITTLE WOMAN.


Backward now we turn to Edna herself, who _was_ a brave little woman,
though she did not know herself of what she was capable, or how soon her
capabilities were to be tested on that October morning when she entered
the cars, at Buffalo, a happy bride,—save when something whispered to
her that perhaps she had not done the wisest thing in marrying so
_secretly_. What would her teachers say when they heard the use she had
made of their permission for her to accompany her sick friend home? And
what would Aunt Jerry say to the runaway match when she was so great a
stickler for the proprieties of life?

“She’ll charge it all to my High Church proclivities,” Edna said to
herself, trying to laugh as she recalled her aunt’s peculiarities, and
the probable effect the news would have on her. “I don’t care! I’m glad
to be free from her any way,” she thought, as she remembered, with a
shudder, all the dreariness and longing for something different which
she had felt in that house by the graveyard where her childhood was
passed.

It had never been hers to know the happiness which many children know.
No mother had ever put her to bed, and tucked her up, with loving words
and the good-night kiss. No hand had smoothed her locks of golden brown,
as she said her little prayer. No pleasant voice had waked her in the
morning from her dreamless sleep, and found excuse when the slumber was
so hard to break, the eyes so unwilling to unclose. No little extra pie
or cake was ever baked for her on the broken bit of plate, or cracked
saucer. No sled, with her name upon it, stood out by gate, or door-step;
and no genuine doll-baby ever lay in any box, or basket, or drawer in
that prim, silent house, for Aunt Jerry did not believe in such useless
things. “She gave the child enough to eat of good, plain, wholesome
food, and that was all any one could ask.” She knew, too, that Edna said
her prayers, and she saw that her Sunday-school lesson was always
learned, and heard her say the Creed and Commandments every Sunday
afternoon; but there were no gentle words and kind caresses, no tucking
up on winter nights, no loving solicitude to see if the little hands and
feet were warm. Edna knit or sewed till eight o’clock, and then, prompt
with the first stroke, put by her work and took the tallow candle from
the mantle piece, and without a word stole up the steep back stairs to
her little bed in the room which looked out upon the graveyard just
across the lane, where the white headstones shining through the darkness
seemed to her like so many risen ghosts. She was afraid of the
graveyard; and many a night she crept trembling into bed, and hiding her
face under the clothes, said her prayers, not from any sense of duty,
but because of the question sure to be put to her next morning, “Did you
say your prayers, Edna?”

At the time of her father’s death Aunt Jerry had contended with his
parishioners about his body, and, coming off victorious, had brought it
home with her and buried it just by the fence under the shadow of her
own cherry-tree, where regularly every Sunday in summer she took Edna
and talked to her of her father, and told her how sorry he would be if
he knew what a bad girl she was, and how he would rest better in his
coffin if she would try to be good and learn the creed and catechism, so
as to be confirmed the next time the Bishop came. And, more from fear
than anything else, Edna learned the catechism and was confirmed, and
hoped her father would be easy in his coffin, as Aunt Jerusha said he
would.

As a child, Edna shunned her father’s grave, and thought only with
terror of him who slept there; but after a time there came a change, and
she no longer stood in fear of that grassy mound, but tended it with the
utmost care, and sometimes, when no one saw her, knelt or rather
crouched beside it, and whispered softly:

“Dear father, I am trying to be good: but oh, it is so hard, and Aunt
Jerry is so cross. I wish you had not died. Help me,—can’t you, father?”

In this prayer there was no direct appeal to God; but He who knew all
the trials and sorrow of the poor orphan girl, heard that cry for help,
and the world was always brighter to Edna after a visit to that grave,
and Aunt Jerusha’s tongue had less power to sting.

Aunt Jerusha meant to do her duty, and thought she did it when she tried
to repress her naturally gay, light-hearted niece, and make her into a
sober, quiet woman, content to sew the blessed day through and knit the
livelong evening.

But Edna was like a rubber ball,—she could be crushed, but she would not
stay so, and the moment the oppressor’s foot was removed she bounded
back again as full of fun, and frolic, and life as ever! So when at the
age of fifteen she became, in one sense, a charity scholar in
Canandaigua Seminary, she recovered all her elasticity of spirits, and,
freed from her aunt’s scrutiny, seemed constantly bubbling over with
happiness and joy.

She was very popular, and, in spite of her plain dress, became the
goddess by whom every academy boy swore, dreaming of her by night, and
devising ways and means of seeing her by day.

Charlie Churchill was in love with her at once,—desperately,
irretrievably in love, and, though she snubbed him at first, and made
laughable caricatures of him in his foppish clothes, with his eye-glass,
which he carried for no reason except to be dandyish, she ended by
returning his affection and pledging herself to him on the fly-leaf of
her algebra, that being the only bit of paper available at the time.

Charlie had the reputation of being very rich,—heir, or joint heir with
his brother of Leighton Place, on the Hudson. And Edna fully believed
him when he talked so largely of “my house, my horses, my hounds, my
park.” All _mine_, and nothing Roy’s, “Old Roy,” as he usually
designated his brother, whom Edna thought of as a sober, middle-aged
man, who was at Leighton rather on sufferance than as its rightful
owner.

After her adventure in the cars, and she learned that the man she had
caricatured was the veritable Roy, she thought him rather younger and
better-looking than she had supposed, but still esteemed him a kind of
supernumerary, who would be dreadfully in her way when she was mistress
at Leighton, and of whom she would dispose as soon as possible.

She would do nothing unkind, she thought,—nothing for which any one
could blame her; but it was so much better for young folks and old folks
to live apart, that she would fit up some one of the numerous cottages
which Charlie had told her were on his place.

There was one near the river, a Gothic cottage, he said, somewhat out of
repair. This she would improve and beautify, and furnish tastefully, and
move Roy and his mother thither, where they could not be disturbed by
the gayeties at Leighton. For she meant to be very gay, and have the
house full all the time, and had made out a list of those who were to be
her guests.

Aunt Jerry was to come during _Lent_, and the carriage was to take her
every day to morning service in the little church; while, every Friday,
they would have omelets for breakfast, and baked salmon trout for
dinner. Edna had the programme of her future life all marked out, even
to the dresses she would wear on different occasions. And she knew just
how beautiful her future home was; for Charlie had described it so
minutely that she had made a little sketch of it, and, with Charlie to
suggest, had corrected and improved and enlarged it, until it was a very
accurate picture of the grounds and house at Leighton; with Edna herself
on the steps, fastening a rose in Charlie’s button-hole.

The likeness to Charlie was perfect, and Edna prized it most for this,
and put it away in her portfolio of drawings; and went on dreaming her
bright dreams of the glorious future opening so joyfully before her.

She was not mercenary, and would have loved and married Charlie all the
same if he had not been rich, as she believed him to be. But she was
very glad that he had money, for her tastes were naturally luxurious.
She liked beautiful things about her; and then she could do so much
good, and make so many happy, she said to Charlie, when he asked her
once how she would feel to know he was poor as a church mouse.

Charlie had almost made up his mind to tell her the truth, for his
conscience troubled him greatly; but when, among other things, she said:
“I do not care for your money, Charlie; and should love you just the
same if you had not a penny. The only thing that could change me toward
you, would be losing confidence in you,” he could not tell her that he
was deceiving her; and so he let her dream on, and tried to remember if
he ever had told her positively that he was the heir of Leighton, and
concluded that he had not. She had taken it for granted, and he was not
responsible for the mistake.

Then, he trusted much to Roy’s generosity. Roy would let them live at
Leighton, of course; and it would be Edna’s home just the same as if he
owned it, only he did not know about _moving_ his mother and Roy into
that cottage by the river.

But he would not worry; it would all be right; and, in any event, Edna
would be _his_, and could not “go back on him,” when she did find out;
and he could easily persuade her it was all done from love and his fear
of losing her.

So he silenced his conscience, and let her go on blindly toward her
fate, and surprised her one day with a proposition to elope.

At first, Edna refused; but when the mail brought her a letter from Aunt
Jerusha, she began to waver. She had asked her aunt for a dollar of
pocket money, and her aunt had written a stinging reply, telling her she
_had_ a dollar when she left home three weeks ago, and asking what had
become of that.

“I know,” she wrote, “that if you follow my instructions, you have put
five cents every Sunday on the plate; that makes fifteen cents; then,
you may have wanted some boot-lacings,—you always do,—and possibly some
elastics, but that is _all_ you have any business to want; and you ought
to have on hand _fifty cents_ at least, and still allow for some
extravagance I can’t think of. No; I shan’t send you any dollar for
three weeks to come; then, if the roads are not too muddy, I shall be in
town with some butter, and eggs, and poultry, and, if I hear a good
account of you, shall give you, maybe, seventy-five cents.

“P.S. I’ve been half sorry that I let you go back to school this winter,
for I ain’t feeling very well, and I shouldn’t wonder if I took you home
with me for a spell. I’ve got stuff enough together to make a nice
carpet, and you could cut and sew the rags.”

Now Edna had not spent her dollar of pocket money in ways of which her
aunt would at all approve. Fifteen cents had gone on the plate, and five
cents more to Sunday-school. Fifteen more had gone for chocolates, and
twenty-five more for the blue ribbon on her hair which Charlie liked so
much; twenty-five more to a poor woman, carrying one child in her arms
and leading another by the hand, while the remaining fifteen had been
paid for a saucer of ice-cream which she shared with two of her
companions; nothing for shoe-lacings, nothing for elastics, and only
twenty cents for anything which would commend itself to her stern aunt,
who would call the beggar woman an impostor, the blue ribbon trash and
vanity, which Edna had promised to renounce, while the chocolates and
cream would be classed under the head of _gormandizing_, if, indeed, the
literal Miss Jerusha did not accuse her of “gluttony and stuffing.”

All this Edna knew was in store for her whenever the state of the roads
would admit of her aunt’s journey to town with her butter, eggs, and
poultry; but, aside from these, there was the dreadful possibility of
being taken from school and compelled to pass the dreary winter in that
lonely house by the graveyard, with no companions but the cat and her
own gloomy thoughts, unless it were the balls of carpet-rags she hated
so terribly. When Edna thought of all this, and then remembered that
Charlie had said, “I shall see you again to-night, when I hope to find
you have changed your mind and will go with me yet,” she began to
hesitate, and balance the two situations offered for her acceptance.
One, the lonely house, the dreary winter, the rasping aunt, and the
carpet-rags; the other, Leighton Place, with its freedom from all
restraint, its life of perfect ease, and Charlie! Can we wonder that she
chose the latter, and told Charlie yes instead of no, and planned the
visit to Mrs. Dana, her mother’s cousin, and looked upon the proposition
to accompany her sick friend home as something providential. There was
no looking back after that, and Edna hardly stopped to think what she
was doing, or to consider the consequences, until she found herself a
bride, and stepped with Charlie on board the train at Buffalo. She was
very happy, and her happiness showed itself in the sparkle of her eye,
and the bright flush on her cheeks, and the restlessness of her little
head, which tossed and turned itself airily, and kept the golden brown
curls in constant motion.

Charlie, too, was happy, or would have been, could he have felt quite
sure that Roy would send some money, without which he would be reduced
to most unpleasant straits, unless he pawned his watch. He could do
that, and he decided that he would; but as it could not be done until he
reached Chicago, and as his purse, after paying the clergyman, and
paying for his tickets, and paying for the book which Edna wanted, was
none the heaviest, he feigned not to be hungry when they stopped to
dine, and so had only Edna’s dinner to pay for, and contented himself
with crackers and pop-corn for his supper; and when Edna proposed
sharing them with him, he only made a faint remonstrance, and himself
suggested that they should travel all night, instead of stopping at some
_horrid hotel_ where the fare was execrable.

And Edna consented to everything, and, as the evening advanced, and she
began to grow weary, nestled her curly head down on Charlie’s shoulder,
and slept as soundly as if she had been at home in her own room looking
out upon the graves behind the churchyard. Once, about midnight, as they
stopped at some station, Charlie went out for a minute, and when he
returned and took his seat beside her, he said, hurriedly, as if it were
something for which he was not very glad:

“I have just recognized two old acquaintances in the rear car, Jack
Heyford and Georgie Burton. I hope they won’t see us. I like Jack well
enough; but to have that Georgie’s great big eyes spearing at you I
could not bear.”

“Who is Georgie Burton, and who is Jack Heyford?” Edna asked; and
Charlie replied, “Georgie lives at Oakwood, near Leighton, and is the
proudest, stuck-up thing, and has tried her best to catch old Roy. I
think she’ll do it, too, in time, and then, my ——, won’t she snub you,
because—”

He hesitated a moment, while Edna said:

“Because what? Tell me, please, why Georgie Burton will snub me.”

“Well, because you are poor, and she is rich,” Charlie jerked out; and
Edna said, innocently:

“But I shall be rich, too, as rich as she, won’t I, Charlie?”

Her clear, honest eyes were fixed upon his without a shadow of
suspicion; and Charlie could not undeceive her, and tell her that ten
dollars was all the money he had in the world; that to defray the
expenses of that journey he had sold a diamond stud in Buffalo, and, if
Roy did not come to the rescue, his watch must get them back to
Leighton.

“Even if you were not rich you would be worth a hundred Georgie
Burtons,” he said, as he drew her closely to his side; and then he spoke
of Jack Heyford, Georgie’s half-brother, and the best fellow in the
world, and Edna listened awhile, until things began to get a little
mixed in her brain, and her head lay again on Charlie’s shoulder, and
her eyes were closed in sleep.

The day had been very warm and sultry, and although somewhat out of
season, a heavy thunder-storm had come up, and the darkness without grew
darker as the rain beat against the windows, and flashes of lightning
showed occasionally against the inky sky. Faster and faster the train
sped on; and Charlie’s head drooped till his locks mingled with Edna’s
curls of golden brown, and in his sleep his arm tightened around her
waist, and he was dreaming perhaps of Roy and his mother, and what they
would say to his wife, when suddenly, without a moment’s warning, came
the fearful crash, and the next flash of lightning which lit up the
gloom showed a dreadful sight of broken beams, and shattered boards, and
shivered glass, and a boyish form wedged tightly in, its white face
upturned to the pitiless sky, while beside it crouched the girlish
bride, trying in vain to extricate her lover, as her quivering lips kept
whispering, “Charlie, oh, Charlie!”




                              CHAPTER IX.
                          AFTER THE ACCIDENT.


It was Jack Heyford who found our heroine; big-hearted Jack, who, after
shaking himself loose from Georgie’s nervous, terrified grasp, and
ascertaining that neither she nor himself was injured, went at once to
the rescue of the poor wretches shrieking and dying beneath the wreck. A
man from a house near by came out with a lantern, and Jack stood beside
him when its rays first fell upon Edna, kneeling by her husband and
trying to get him free. Something in the exceeding beauty of her face,
together with its horrified expression, struck deep at Jack’s heart, and
bending over her, he said softly as a mother would address her child:

“Poor little one, are you hurt? and is that your brother lying there?”

Edna recognized the genuine kindness and sympathy in the voice, and
answered:

“Oh, Charlie, Charlie, get him out. He is my husband. We were married
this morning.”

A look of surprise and incredulity flitted over Jack’s face; she seemed
so young, so like a child, this girl who was married that morning, and
whose husband lay dead before him. But he asked her no more questions
then, and set himself at once to release the body from the heavy timbers
which held it fast. There was a terrible gash across the temple, and the
blood was pouring from it so that recognition was impossible until the
body was taken to a house near by, and the white, marred face made
clean. Then, with a start, Jack exclaimed:

“Oh, Georgie, come quick! It’s Charlie Churchill. Don’t you remember my
telling you that I saw some one in the front car who resembled him?”

In an instant Georgie was at his side and bending over the lifeless form
of the young man.

“Yes, ’tis Charlie,” she said, “and who is this girl clinging to him and
kissing him so?”

Her voice showed plainly that she thought _this girl_ had no right to be
“clinging to him and kissing him so,” and her black eyes had in them a
look of virtuous indignation as they scrutinized poor Edna, who shrank
back a little when Georgie, wholly disbelieving Jack’s answer that she
was Charlie’s wife, married the previous day, laid her hand firmly on
the girl’s shoulder and demanded sternly:

“Who are you, and what do you know of Mr. Churchill? He is a friend of
mine.”

In a kind of frightened, helpless way, Edna lifted up her tearful eyes,
and with lips quivering with pain, replied:

“Charlie was my husband. I am Edna Browning. We ran away and were
married in Buffalo, and now he is killed.”

She had told her story, and her eyes fell beneath the cold gaze bent
upon her, while as one woman reads another, so Edna, though ignorant of
the world and of such people as Georgie Burton, read doubt and distrust
in the proud face above her; and with a moan like some hunted animal
brought to bay, she turned appealingly to _Jack_, as if knowing
instinctively that in him she had a friend. And Jack bent down beside
her, and laid his great warm hand upon her head, and smoothed her
tangled hair, and wiped from one of the curls a drop of blood which had
come from Charlie’s wound. Edna answered all Jack’s questions
unhesitatingly, and when he asked if she was not hurt, she told of the
blow on her head and shoulder, and offered no remonstrance when he
proposed that she should lie down upon the lounge the woman of the house
prepared for her. She was not seriously hurt, but the pain in her head
increased, and she found it impossible to sit up when once she had lain
down upon the pillow, which Jack himself arranged for her.

Georgie was busy with Charlie for a time, and then when it was certain
that he was past recall, she went to Edna and asked what she could do
for her.

Edna knew that she was Georgie Burton, the proud woman whom Charlie
disliked, and she shrank from her advances and answered rather curtly:

“Nothing, thank you. No one can do anything for me.”

Towards Jack, however, she felt differently. Charlie had spoken well of
him, and even if he had not, Edna would have trusted that honest face
and kindly voice anywhere, and when he said to her, “We have telegraphed
to your husband’s family, and if you will give me the address of your
Chicago friends I will also send a dispatch to them,” she told him of
Mrs. Joseph Dana, and of her aunt in Richmond, to whom she wished both
letter and telegram to be forwarded.

When Edna knew the dispatch had gone to Charlie’s brother, she turned
her face to the wall and wept bitterly as she thought how different her
going to Leighton would be from what she had anticipated, for that she
should go there she never for a moment doubted. It was Charlie’s home,
and she was his wife, and when she remembered Aunt Jerusha and the house
by the graveyard, she was glad she had a refuge from the storm sure to
burst upon her head.

Edna was very young, and sleep comes easily to such, and she fell asleep
at last and slept heavily for two or three hours, while around the work
of caring for the dead and ministering to the living went on.

Georgie was very busy, and with her own hands wiped the blood from some
flesh wound, and then bandaged up the hand or arm with a skill
unsurpassed by the surgeons in attendance. She could do this to
strangers who thought her a perfect saint, and remembered her always as
the beautiful woman who was so kind, and whose voice was so soft and
pitiful as she administered to their wants. But when she passed the room
where Edna lay, there came a look upon her face which showed she had but
little sympathy with that poor girl. Edna had concealed nothing in her
story, and Georgie, judging from a worldly point of view, knew that
Charlie Churchill had made a terrible _mésalliance_, and said so to
Jack, when for a few moments he stood by her near the door of Edna’s
room.

“A poor girl with no family connections, what will poor Mrs. Churchill
say, and she so proud. I think it a dreadful thing. Of course, they
never can receive her at Leighton.”

“Why not?” Jack asked, a little sharply, and Georgie replied:

“There can be nothing in common between this girl and people like the
Leightons. Besides that, she really has no claim on them, for you know
that Charlie had not a cent in the world of his own.”

“No, I did not; Charlie’s talk would lead one to a different
conclusion,” Jack said, and Georgie continued:

“Yes, I know Charlie used to talk to strangers as if it was all his,
when the facts are that the property came through the Leighton line, and
neither Charlie nor his mother have anything except what Roy gives them.
This girl thought otherwise, I dare say, and married for money more than
anything else.”

“Heaven help her then, poor little thing,” Jack said, as he moved away,
and his ejaculation was echoed in the faint cry which the “poor little
thing” tried to smother as she, too, whispered gaspingly, “yes, Heaven
help me, if all that woman has said is true.”

Edna was awake, and had been an unwilling listener to a conversation
which made her at first grow angry and resentful, and then quiver and
shake with a nameless terror of something coming upon her worse even
than Charlie’s terrible death. To lose confidence in him whom she had
trusted so implicitly; to know he had deceived her; aye, had died with a
lie in his heart, if not on his lips, was terrible, and Edna felt for a
moment as if she were going mad. From the lounge where she lay she could
see a corner of the sheet which covered her dead, and with a shudder she
turned herself away from that shrouded form, moaning bitterly:

“Oh, Charlie, is it true, and was it a lie you told me all the time. I
didn’t care for your money. It isn’t that which hurts me so. It’s losing
faith in you. Oh, Charlie, my lost, lost Charlie.”

One of the women of the house heard her, and catching the last words
went in to comfort her. Her story was generally known by this time, and
great was the sympathy expressed for her and the curiosity to see her,
and there was a world of pity for her in the heart of the woman, who,
feeling that she must say something, began in that hackneyed kind of way
some people have of talking to one in sorrow:

“Don’t give way so, poor little dear. Your husband is _not_ lost; he has
only gone a little while before. You will meet him again some time. He
is not lost forever.”

Edna fairly writhed in anguish, and could have screamed outright in her
agony.

“Don’t, don’t,” she cried, lifting up both her hands. “Please go away.
Don’t talk. I can’t bear it. Oh I wish I had never been born.”

“She was getting out of her head,” the woman thought, and she went after
Jack Heyford, who seemed to be more to her than any one else.

But Edna was not crazy, and when Jack came to her, there were no tears
in her eyes, no traces of violent emotion on her face,—nothing but a
rigid, stony expression on the one, and a hopeless, despairing look in
the other.

She did not tell him what she had heard, for if it were true she did not
wish him to know how she had been deceived. Of her own future she did
not think or care. Charlie had not been true and honest with her.
Charlie had died with his falsehoods unforgiven; that was the burden of
her grief, and if prayers of the living can avail to save the dead, then
surely there was hope for Charlie in the ceaseless, agonized prayers
which went up from Edna’s breaking heart all that long, terrible day,
when Georgie thought her asleep, so perfectly still she lay with her
hands folded upon her breast and her eyelids closed tightly over her
eyes. She knew they had telegraphed to Charlie’s friends, and she heard
Miss Burton telling some one that an answer had been received, and
_Russell_ was then on his way to Iona. Who Russell was she did not know;
and at first she felt relieved that it was not Roy coming there to look
at her as coldly and curiously as Miss Burton did. Then her feelings
underwent a change, and she found herself longing to see some one who
had been near and dear to Charlie, and she wondered if a message would
not be sent to her by Russell,—something which would look as if she was
expected to go back to Leighton, at least, for the funeral. She wanted
to see Charlie’s old home; to hear his mother’s voice; to crouch at her
feet and ask forgiveness for having been instrumental in Charlie’s
death; to get the kind look or word from Roy, and that would satisfy
her. She would then be content to go away forever from the beautiful
place, of which she had expected to be mistress.

But Russell brought no message, and when she heard that, Edna said, “I
cannot go,” and turned her face again to the wall, and shut her lids
tightly over the hot, aching eyes which tears would have relieved. When
Mrs. Dana came from Chicago and took the young creature in her motherly
arms, and said so kindly, “Don’t talk about it now,” her tears flowed at
once, and she was better for it, and clung to her cousin as a child
clings to its mother in some threatened peril. Russell was very kind to
her too, for her extreme youth and exceeding great beauty affected even
him, and he spoke to her very gently, and urged her to accompany him
back to Leighton. And perhaps she might have yielded but for Georgie,
who said to Russell:

“You know your mistress as well as I, and that just now this girl’s
presence would only augment her grief.” This remark was overheard by
Mrs. Dana, who reported it to her cousin, and that settled the matter;
Edna would not go, and lay with her hands clasped over her eyes when
they took Charlie away. Jack Heyford had come to her side, and asked if
she wished to see her husband again, and with a bitter cry she answered
him:

“No, I could not bear it now. I’d rather remember him as he was.”

And so they carried him out, and Edna heard them as they went through
the yard to the wagon which was to take the coffin to the station, and
the house seemed so lonely now that all were gone, and she missed Jack
Heyford so much, and wondered if she should ever see him again to thank
him for all his kindness to her. He was a clerk in one of the large
dry-goods stores in Chicago, and Mrs. Dana said she had occasionally
seen him there, and they were talking of him and wondering how his
sister chanced to be so unlike him, when a rapid step came up the walk,
and Jack’s voice was heard in the adjoining room. He had never intended
going to Leighton, he said, in reply to Edna’s remark, “I supposed you
had gone with your sister.”

He seemed very sad indeed as he sat a few moments by the fire kindled in
Edna’s room, and as she lay watching him, she fancied that she saw him
brush a tear away, and that his lips moved as if talking to some one.
And he was talking to a poor little crippled girl, waiting so anxiously
in Chicago for his coming, and whose disappointed voice he could hear
asking, “Where is sister?”

“Poor Annie! Sister is not here. There! there! Don’t cry. She is coming
by and by.”

That was what Jack Heyford was saying to himself, as he sat before the
fire, with that tired, sad look upon his face, and his heart was very
sore toward the woman who had shown herself so selfish.




                               CHAPTER X.
                           GEORGIE AND JACK.


                                                 CHICAGO, _Sept. —, 18—_

Dear Sister:—I write in great haste to tell you of little Annie’s
accident, and that you must come out and see her, if only for a few
days. It happened the week after mother died. Her foot must have
slipped, or hit on something, and she fell from the top of the stairs to
the bottom, and hurt her back or hip; I hardly think the doctor knew
which, or in fact what to do for her. She cannot walk a step, and lies
all day in bed, or sits in her chair, with no other company than old
Aunt Luna, who is faithful and kind. But Annie wants you and talks of
you all the time, and last night, when I got home from the store, she
told me she had written to you, and gave me this bit of paper, which I
inclose.

“And now, Georgie, do come if possible, and come at once. There are so
many things I want to consult you about now that mother is gone. I can
ill afford to lose the time; but if you will start the —th day of
October, I will meet you in Buffalo, so that you will not have far to
travel alone. I shall expect your answer, saying yes.

                                              “Your brother,      JACK.”

This letter, or rather the slip of paper it contained, had taken Georgie
Burton to Buffalo, and on to Iona, where the accident occurred. She
might have resisted Jack’s appeal, and thought it one of his scares, and
that Annie was not much hurt, and would do well enough with the old
negress, Luna; but Annie’s letter was a different thing from Jack’s, and
Georgie wept passionately when she read it. It was a little child’s
letter, and some of the words were printed, for Annie was just beginning
to learn to write of Jack, who was her teacher in all things.


“Dear sister Gorgy,” the note began, “mother is dead and I’ve hurted my
back and have to ly all day stil, and it do ake so hard, and I’me so
streemly lonesome, and want to see my sweet, pretty sister so much. I
ask Jack if you will come and he don’t b’leeve you will, and then I
’members my mother say, ask Jesus if you want anything, and I does ask
him and tell him my back akes, and mother’s gone to live with him. And I
want to see you, and won’t he send you to me for Christ’s sake, amen.
And I know he will. Come, Gorgy, pleas, and bring me some choklets.

                                                        “ANNIE HEYFORD.”


Georgie could not withstand that appeal, and when Mrs. Burton tried to
dissuade her from going, she paid no heed whatever. Indeed, she scarcely
heard what her mother was saying, for her thoughts were far away with a
little golden-haired child, for whom she stowed away in her trunk the
chocolates asked for, and the waxen doll and the picture book and pretty
puzzle found that day at the shop in the little town near Oakwood.

Jack met her in Buffalo as he had said he would, and took her to the
hotel for the night, and, in the privacy of her room she said things she
never would have said had there been other ears to listen than those of
Jack,—faithful, trusty Jack, who knew that of _her_ which no other
living creature knew. Alone with him she needed no disguise, and her
voice was not as soft and sweet and bird-like as it always was at
Oakwood; but it sounded much like any ordinary voice, as she asked after
Annie, and if it really was necessary to send for her and compel her to
take that long, tiresome journey.

“Perhaps it was not necessary; Aunt Luna and I could take care of her,
of course; but, Georgie, she wanted you so badly, and I thought
maybe”—here Jack’s chin quivered a little, and he walked to the window,
and stood with his back to Georgie—“I thought you might want to see her.
It’s two years almost since you did see her. And mother’s being dead,
and all, we feel so lonely and broken up, and don’t know what to do. A
man’s nothing with a little child like Annie. I say, Georgie,”—and Jack
suddenly faced about—“I thought maybe you’d stay with us a spell. We
want a head; somebody to take the lead. Won’t you, Georgie? It is not
like Oakwood, I know; and you’ll feel the change; but it is a great deal
better than it used to be when you were there; for Annie’s sake, maybe,
you’ll do it, and I’ll work like a horse for you both. I’m getting good
wages now,—better than ever before. I can give you some luxuries, and
all the comforts, I guess. Mother thought you would. She told me to tell
you it was your duty——”

Jack stopped suddenly, arrested by something in the expression of his
sister’s face, which he did not like. She had listened in silence, and
with a good deal of softness in her eyes, until he spoke of her staying
with him. Then there was a sudden lifting of her eyebrows, and she shot
at him a look of surprise that he should presume to propose such a
thing. When he reached his mother’s message touching her duty, her face
flushed with resentment, and she broke out impulsively:

“Don’t go any further, Jack. You can work upon my feelings when you talk
of Annie’s wanting me, but when you try to preach _duty_ to me, you fail
of your object at once. I parted company with duty and principle, and
everything of that sort, years ago; and _you_, who know me so well,
ought to know better than to try and reach me through any such channel.
I am going to see Annie, to do what I can for her, and then return to
Oakwood. The kind of life I have led there, since leaving you, has
unfitted me for—for—”

“For our four rooms on the second floor of a tenement house,” Jack said,
a little bitterly, and then there was silence between them; and Georgie
sat, thinking of Oakwood, with all its luxurious elegance, and Jack’s
presumption in supposing she would voluntarily give it up for those four
rooms on the second floor, with their plain furniture and still plainer
surroundings.

And while she was thus employed, Jack, who had come back from the
window, was leaning upon the mantel and intently looking at the
beautiful woman with marks of culture and high breeding in every turn of
her graceful head, and motion of her body,—the woman whose charms were
enhanced by all the appliances of wealth, and who looked a very queen
born to adorn some home as elegant and beautiful as herself. She _would_
be out of place in the four rooms which constituted his home, he
thought; and yet her natural place was there, and in his heart he felt
for a moment as if he despised her for her selfishness and lack of all
that was womanly and right. But she was his sister. They had called the
same man father; they had been children together, and though he was the
younger of the two, he had always assumed a kind of protecting air
toward the little girl whose beauty he admired so much, and whom he once
thought so sweet and lovely.

As she grew toward womanhood, and her marvellous beauty expanded day by
day until it became the remark of even passers-by, who saw her at the
window, he worshipped her as a being infinitely superior to himself, and
when a great and crushing sorrow came upon her early in life, he stood
bravely by her, shielding her as far as possible from disgrace, and took
her to his own fireside, and, boy though he was in years, told her she
was welcome then and forever, and overtasked his strength and gave up
his hopes of an education, that she might be warmed and fed and clothed,
even in dainty apparel which suited her brilliant beauty so well.
Latterly their lives had lain apart from each other, hers at Oakwood,
where, the petted idol of her indulgent aunt, she had no wish
ungratified; and his in the noisy city of the West, where, at the head
of a family, he toiled for his mother and the little Annie who was like
a sister to him, and whom he loved with a deeper love than he had given
to Georgie, inasmuch as she was more worthy of his love. His mother was
now dead; Annie was a cripple; and in his loneliness and perplexity his
heart went after Georgie as the proper one to help him. She had acceded
to his wishes in part, but refused him where he had the greatest need,
and his heart was very sore as he stood looking at her and thinking of
all that was past in her life, and of the possible future.

She suspected his thoughts, and with her old, witching smile and manner,
arose and stood by him, and parting his hair with her white hand, said
coaxingly:

“Don’t be angry with me, Jack. I cannot bear that, for you are the best,
the truest friend I have in the world, and I love you so much, and will
do anything for you but that; I cannot stay with you. I should neither
be happy myself nor make you so; and then my remaining in Chicago would
seriously interfere with my plans, which may result in bringing us all
together beneath one roof. Trust me, please, and believe I am acting for
the best.”

She was thinking of Roy Leighton, and how her staying in Chicago might
prevent what she so ardently desired. The living together beneath one
roof was a thought of the instant, and nothing she had ever considered
for a moment, or ever would. But it answered her purpose just as well;
and she smoothed Jack’s hair so lovingly, and looked at him with so
soft, beseeching eyes, in which there was a semblance of tears, that
Jack began to forgive her, and feel that she was right after all, and it
was not of any use to make her unhappy by insisting upon her staying
where she did not wish to stay.

This was in Buffalo, where he met her. Then followed the catastrophe,
and Jack uttered no word of remonstrance against staying till Russell
came, although he knew just how the little girl at home was longing for
them. He wrote her a note, telling her to be patient, as sister Georgie
was coming, and then gave himself to the suffering ones around him, with
Georgie as a most valuable aid. He had no thought of her turning back to
Leighton, and the fact that she was intending to do so, came like a
thunderbolt. He could see no reason for it, and when she pleaded Mrs.
Churchill’s grief, which she could quiet better than any one else, he
was guilty of swearing a little about the whole Leighton tribe, Roy not
excepted; and he made Georgie cry, and didn’t care either, and would not
ask her _when_ she was coming, but received the chocolates, and the
doll, and the puzzle in silence, and put them away in his travelling
bag, with a half-muttered oath as he thought of Georgie’s selfishness,
and a choking lump in his throat as he remembered the little one at
home, and her disappointment. Georgie was all sweetness to the last, and
her face wore an injured, but still a forgiving, angelic look, as she
bade Jack good-by and said to him:

“I shall be with you almost before you know it. Tell Annie not to cry,
but be a good girl till sister comes.”

Jack did not reply, and his face was very sad when he went back to Edna,
and asked what he could do for her. He had done for her already
something she would never know, but which, nevertheless, was just as
great a kindness. After hearing from Georgie of Charlie’s entire
dependence upon Roy, it had occurred to him to take charge of the dead
youth’s pocket-book, and see how much it contained. Ten dollars,—that
was all,—and Jack’s heart gave a great throb of pity, as he counted out
the little roll, and thought how much Edna would need.

“Oh, I do so wish I was rich,” he said; and then he drew out his own
purse and counted its contents,—twenty-five dollars, and twenty of that
he had mentally appropriated for the purchase of a coat, to be worn in
the store, as the one he was wearing now was getting shabby and old.
“Maybe Aunt Luna can fix it up,” he said to himself. “It is not
threadbare; it’s only shiny-like in spots. I’ll wear it another quarter,
and here goes for that poor, little frightened thing.”

He put fifteen dollars in Charlie’s purse, and ten back into his own;
then he looked at Charlie’s watch, but when he saw upon it, “Presented
by his mother, Christmas, 18—,” he said this must go back to Leighton,
and the watch was reverently laid aside to be given into Russell’s care,
but the purse he kept for Edna, telling Georgie that he had it, and when
she asked how much was in it, answered, “twenty-five dollars,” but said
nothing of his coat and generous self-denial. He was used to such
things; he would hardly have known himself with no one to care for, and
when Georgie was gone with Charlie’s body, he turned to Charlie’s wife,
and began to plan for her comfort. It never occurred to him that much as
he desired to be at home, he could leave her alone with only a woman to
look after her. If it had, he might have gone that night, but he chose
to wait till the next day, when he hoped Edna would be able to bear the
journey.

She was very weak and feverish when the morrow came, and Jack lifted her
in his arms as if she had been Annie, and carried her into the car,
where by turning two seats together he improvised a very comfortable
bed, with his own and Mrs. Dana’s travelling shawl. Nor did he say good
by until he had carried her into Mrs. Dana’s house, and deposited her
upon a lounge around which four little children gathered wonderingly.

“I shall run in and see how you are to-night or to-morrow. Now I must go
to Annie,” he said; and Edna felt drearier, more desolate than ever, as
the door closed upon him, and she heard his footsteps going from her,
and leaving her there in that strange place alone, with the children
huddling around her, and the baby screaming loudly at the sight of its
mother.




                              CHAPTER XI.
                   EDNA’S FIRST WEEKS AT MRS. DANA’S.


Mrs. Dana did not live in a block, but in a little wooden house standing
by itself in the suburbs of the city. John Dana, who was a carpenter by
trade, though he now kept a small grocery, had built the house himself
at odd hours of leisure, fashioning it after no particular style, but
rather according to his means, which were somewhat limited. It was
neither pretty nor commodious, but very comfortable, and nicely kept by
his thrifty wife, who tried to make Edna feel that she was not in the
way, notwithstanding the smallness of the quarters and the hosts of
children which seemed to fill every nook and corner of the kitchen, and
followed even into the spare room, where, though dignified with the name
of parlor, there was a bed on which poor Edna laid her aching head,
feeling more desolate and homesick than she had ever felt in her life
before, and in her desolation even longing for the old familiar chamber
at Aunt Jerusha’s which looked out upon the graveyard. She was not
accustomed to city ways of living, and the house seemed so small and the
noise in the street so great that she felt it was impossible for her to
stay there. But what should she do and where should she go? To return to
Aunt Jerusha was not to be thought of, and so she did not consider that
for a moment; but her thoughts did keep straying away toward Leighton,
Charlie’s home. Perhaps Georgie had been mistaken and Charlie had a
right there after all, or if he had not, possibly his mother and brother
would take some interest in her for Charlie’s sake, and ask her to come
to them or try to help her in some way.

“And if they do, I’ll accept their overtures,” she thought to herself,
as she held her throbbing head with both hands, and tried to keep back
the scalding tears.

The children had been quieted down by this time. The baby was asleep in
its cradle; Rachel, the girl who in Mrs. Dana’s absence had cared for
the family, had gone home, and Mrs. Dana, having laid aside her
travelling suit, was busy putting things to rights and preparing supper
for her husband, the master of the house, whom Edna had not yet seen,
and whose approach was hailed by the children with a perfect storm of
joy.

“Papa’s comin’. I seen him, I did.”

“I mean to tell him first ma’s here.”

“You shut, ’cause I’m goin’ to. You’re always doin’ everything and me
nothin’.”

These and similar outcries fell on Edna’s ears, and she began to feel a
little curiosity about this man, who, finding her there in the capacity
of a poor, sick relation, might consider her in the light of an
intruder. But she did not know John Dana. Everybody was welcome so long
as he had a crust, and as soon as he had been made a little more
presentable by a fresh collar and necktie, and had washed his hands to
get off what his wife called “a mackerel smell,” he went to Edna’s room
and spoke very kindly to her, and said he hoped Susan had made her
comfortable, and that the youngsters would not drive her crazy.

He had one in his arms then, and two more were holding to his coat
skirts and climbing up his knees, and Edna felt at once just how kind
and generous and unselfish he was, and the terrible pain lessened a
little, and the homesickness was not so great as before. He had a letter
for her, he said, or rather one directed to Mr. Churchill, and placing
in her hands the letter written by Mrs. Churchill to her son, he called
his troop of children to come out while “Cousin Edna read her letter.”

His wife had brought in a lamp, and sitting up in bed Edna held the
letter a moment while her hand grew icy cold and her heart beat almost
audibly. For a single moment she thought, “I will not open it. I will
send it back unread;” then there came over her an intense desire to know
what Mrs. Churchill or Roy thought about the marriage. Charlie had said
to her on the morning of the bridal, “I have written to Roy and told him
we were coming home after a little;” and this, of course, was the reply.

“Maybe I shall know if what Miss Burton said was true or false, if I
read this,” Edna thought, and with a hope for the best she opened the
envelope and read the letter through, knowing when she had finished it
how contemptuously Charlie’s mother looked upon the girl who had
entangled her son into a _mésalliance_, and how mercenary her motives
were regarded.

“I cannot help feeling that if she had known all, your unfortunate
entanglement would have been prevented,” Mrs. Churchill had written, and
Edna commented sadly upon it:

“Yes, if I had known all, it would have been prevented; but it is not
the money,—no, not the money; oh, Charlie, it is losing faith in you
which hurts me the worst,” she moaned; then, resentment toward Mrs.
Churchill got the better of her grief, and she said, “I’ll write to that
woman, and tell her how mistaken she is.”

But only for an instant did she harbor such a thought. She would not
wound Mrs. Churchill more deeply than she was already wounded. She would
not write her at all, but to Roy, the heir,—Roy, the master of Leighton.
The money came from him, and to him it should be returned, but not all
at once. Fortunately for her Roy had sent a check payable to the bearer,
and so she had no trouble in getting it cashed, and she decided that she
must keep a part and pay it afterward. She had seen enough of the
arrangements of the house to know that while there was not poverty,
there was not a great plenty, and the owners could ill afford any
additional expense.

“I may be sick for weeks,” she thought, “and I shall need money, and
that twenty-five dollars in poor Charlie’s purse will not go very far.
Oh, if only Aunt Jerusha was kind and forgiving; she has means; she
could help me, if she would.”

At this point Mrs. Dana came in, bringing Edna’s supper, which she had
tried to make as inviting as possible. But Edna could not eat; and, as
the evening advanced, she grew so hot and feverish, and said such queer
things, that Mrs. Dana sent for a physician, who managed by dint of
bleeding, and blistering, and pills, to reduce his patient to a
desirable state of weakness and keep her an invalid for two weeks or
more; during which time Jack Heyford came many times to inquire after
her, and bring her some little present which he thought might please
her. Now it was an orange, or a bunch of grapes, and again a bouquet of
flowers, which he left; and Edna liked these the best, and always cried
over them, and thought of the little patch of flowers which, after a
vast amount of pleading, she had been permitted to have for her own in
Aunt Jerusha’s garden.

From Aunt Jerusha there had as yet come no reply to the message sent
from Iona, and Edna began to feel that she was alone in the world, with
herself to care for, unaided by any one. And with returning strength she
felt equal to it. The blow which had taken Charlie from her and opened
her eyes to Charlie’s defects, and showed her the estimation in which
Charlie’s mother held her, seemed to have cut her loose from all that
was giddy, and weak, and foolish in the Edna Browning of old. All the
lightness and thoughtlessness of her young girlhood fled away and left
her at seventeen a woman, self-reliant, and determined to fight her own
way in the world independent of friend or foe.

And so her first act when able to do anything was to send the three
hundred dollars back to Roy, with her note for the balance. How proud
and strong she felt as she wrote that note, and then read it aloud to
see how it sounded, and how she anticipated the time when she could pay
it even to the utmost farthing. Once she thought to sell her watch and
corals, the pretty gifts which Charlie had brought her just before she
went with him to the house of the clergyman. He had come into the room
after she was dressed, and stealing up behind her, had laid the chain
across her neck, and with his arms around her had held the watch before
her eyes and said:

“Look here, my darling! see what I have brought you.”

With boyish delight, he fastened it in her belt, and put the delicate
pink jewels in her ears, and then bade her look at herself in the mirror
to see the effect. That scene was as vividly in her mind as if it had
occurred but yesterday; the happy, blushing face which the mirror
reflected, and behind the young girl the tall young man whose lips
touched her glowing cheeks as they whispered, “My beauty, my wife!”

She could not part with the bridal gift, so she kept a part of Roy’s
money, and put the coral away as unsuited to her black dress, but she
wore the watch, and its muffled ticking beneath her belt seemed like
some friendly human heart throbbing against her own. This was before she
received Aunt Jerusha’s effusion, which came to her the same day on
which she sent her first letter to Roy, and which deserves a place in
another chapter.




                              CHAPTER XII.
                  HOW AUNT JERUSHA RECEIVED THE NEWS.


Aunt Jerusha had never heard of Charlie Churchill, or dreamed of her
niece’s love affair, and she sat milking Blossom, her pet cow, with her
skirts tucked up around her, and an old sun-bonnet perched on her head,
when the boy from Livonia station came furiously round the corner of the
church, and reined up his panting, hard driven horse so suddenly, that
Blossom, frightened out of her usually grave, quiet mood, started aside,
and in so doing upset the pail, and came near upsetting the highly
scandalized woman, who, turning fiercely to the boy, demanded what he
wanted, and what he meant by tipping over all that milk, which was as
good as a quarter right out of her pocket.

The boy, who knew the contents of the telegram, made no reply with
regard to the milk, except a prolonged whistle as he saw the white
liquid streaming along upon the ground, and then glanced curiously at
the tall, grim woman confronting him so angrily.

“Here’s a telegraph,” he said, “and there’s two dollars to pay on it,
’cause I had to fetch it so far; and your nephew, or niece, Edna, I
forgot which, is dead, killed by the cars.”

At the mention of the price she must pay for that bit of paper, Miss
Pepper bristled at once, and began to revolve the propriety of not
taking it from the boy, who could not compel her to pay for what she
never received; but when, boy-like, he blurted out the contents, making
a great blunder, and telling her Edna was dead, she grew whiter than the
milk which Tabby, her cat, was lapping at her feet, and forgetting the
two dollars leaned up against the fence, and taking the telegram in her
hands, began to question the boy as to the _when_ and _how_ of the
terrible catastrophe.

“Edna killed!” she gasped, and to do her justice, she never thought of
the piles of carpet-rags the girl was to have cut that winter; for she
had made up her mind to bring her home when she went with her poultry to
Canandaigua; but she _did_ think of the dreary look she had so often
seen in the young girl’s face; of the tears, which Edna had shed so
plentifully when under discipline; and there arose in her heart a wish
that she had been less strict and exacting with the girl who was said to
be dead. “How came she near the cars to get killed?” she asked, and the
boy replied:

“Read for yourself, and you’ll know all I do.”

It was growing dark, and Miss Pepper led the way into the house, and
bade the boy sit down while she hunted up a tallow candle and lighted it
from a coal taken from the hearth. There was certainly a tear on her
hard face as she blew the coal to a blaze, and the pain in her heart
kept growing until with the aid of the candle she read:


                                              “IONA, _October 8th, 18—_.

 “TO MISS JERUSHA PEPPER:
         ALLEN’S HILL, ONTARIO CO., N.Y.
             (_via_ LIVONIA STATION.)

“There has been a railroad accident, and your niece Edna’s husband was
killed. They were married yesterday morning in Buffalo.

                                                   MISS GEORGIE BURTON.”


“Edna’s husband! Married yesterday morning in Buffalo! What does it
mean?” she exclaimed, forgetting the dreary look, and the tears, and the
harsh discipline, and in her amazement seizing the boy by the collar, as
if he had been the offending Edna, and asking him again “what it meant,
and where he got that precious piece of news, and who Edna’s husband
was, and how he knew it was true, and if it was not, how he dared come
there with such ridiculous stuff and tip her milk over and charge her
two dollars to boot?”

She had come to herself by this time, and the milk and the money were of
more importance to her than the story, which she believed was false; and
she continued to shake the boy until he twisted himself loose from her
grasp and retreated toward the door.

“Goll darn ye,” he said, “a pretty actin’ woman you be, with some of yer
relations dead. What do I know about it? Nothin’, only it was
telegraphed to the office this afternoon, and they posted me off to once
to tell you ’bout it. I’ll take the two dollars, or if you won’t they’ll
send you a writ to-morry;” and the boy, grown bold from the fact that he
was standing on the door-step and out of the vixen’s reach, began to
whistle “Shoo Fly” with a great deal of energy.

People like Miss Pepper usually have a great terror of a _writ_, and
without stopping to consider the probabilities of the case, the good
woman reluctantly counted out two dollars, and handing them to the boy,
bade him be off and never darken her door again. Once alone, Miss Pepper
read and _re-read_ the telegram, which gave her no further intelligence
than that first imparted to her. There had been a railroad accident out
west and Edna’s husband was killed. What could it mean, and who was
Edna’s husband? Then as she thought of Canandaigua and reflected that
somebody there knew something about it, she resolved upon going to town
on the morrow and ascertaining for herself what it all was about. But
the next morning was ushered in with a driving rain, which came in under
Miss Jerusha’s front door, and drove into the cellar and through that
patch of old shingles on the roof, and kept the old dame hurrying hither
and thither with mop, and broom, and pail, and drove Canandaigua from
her mind as utterly impracticable.

The next day, however, was tolerably clear; and having borrowed a
neighbor’s horse, and arrayed herself in an old water-proof cloak, with
the hood over her head, she started for town, where the news had
preceded her, and produced a state of wild excitement among the seminary
girls, who pounced upon Miss Pepper at once, each telling what she knew,
and sometimes far more than she knew. First, they had heard that Charlie
Churchill had run away from the academy, then of the marriage in
Buffalo, and then the last evening’s papers had brought the news of the
fearful tragedy, which changed the public feeling of blame into pity for
poor Edna. But Aunt Jerusha knew no pity. That four hundred dollars
which she must now pay for Edna’s education precluded the possibility of
pity in a nature like hers, and she felt only anger and resentment
towards her luckless niece who had thrown such a bill of expense upon
her. Not that the principal spoke of the bill so soon; he had no fears
of its being unpaid, and would have waited till a more fitting time,
before touching upon so delicate a point. It was Miss Pepper herself who
dragged in the subject and insisted upon knowing _about_ how much it
was, even if she could not know exactly, and showed so much bitterness
that Mr. Stone threw off fifty dollars and made it an even four hundred,
and told her not to trouble herself, and a good deal more meant to
conciliate her.

But he might as well have talked to the wind, for any effect his words
had upon the excited woman. Everything which it was possible to learn
with regard to Charlie Churchill she learned, and in her secret heart
felt that if it had turned out well, she should be a little proud of the
Leighton family; but it had not turned out well, and she expressed
herself so freely, that a few of the girls who had always been envious
of Edna, and Charlie’s attentions to her, dropped a hint of a rumor they
had heard about some bill at Greenough’s, and forthwith the incensed
Jerusha drove to the jeweller’s, and by dint of questioning and
cross-questioning, learned about the watch, and the coral, and the ring;
then hurrying back to the Seminary, she picked up the clothes Edna had
left, and cramming them into a little square hair-trunk which had held
Henry Browning’s wardrobe when he first went to college, carried it to
the buggy by the gate, and putting her feet upon it, drove back to the
Hill in a state of greater mental excitement than she had ever been in
before.

Two days after Jack’s letter came, telling her the particulars, and
saying “Mrs. Churchill sends her love and will write herself when she is
able. She is very sorry to make you feel as badly as she knows you must,
and hopes you will forgive her.”

This letter, instead of conciliating Miss Pepper, threw her into a
greater rage than ever. This might have been owing in part to the fact
that she was suffering from an attack of neuralgia, induced by a cold
taken the day she went to Canandaigua in Edna’s behalf. Neuralgia is not
pleasant to bear at any time, and Miss Pepper did not bear it
pleasantly, and looked more like a scarecrow than a human being as she
crouched before the fire, with her false teeth out, a hasty pudding
poultice on her face, a mustard paste on the back of her neck, and an
old woollen shawl pinned over her head to keep it warm.

“Mrs. Churchill! Mrs. Fiddlesticks! That chit of a child,” she said,
when she finished reading Jack Heyford’s letter, “sends her love, and is
sorry, and hopes I’ll forgive her! Stuff! I hope I won’t! Brought up
religiously as she was, confirmed and all that, and then ran away with a
beggar who breaks his neck. No, I shan’t forgive her; leastwise not for
a spell. She ought to suffer awhile, and she needn’t think to wheedle me
into asking her home right away. By and by, when she is punished enough,
I may take her back, but not now. She has made her bed and must lie in
it.”

This was Miss Pepper’s decision, and taking advantage of a few minutes
when her face was easier, she commenced a letter to Edna, berating her
soundly for what she had done, telling her she could not expect her
friends to stand by her when she disgraced herself by “marrying a man or
boy who did not own so much as the shirt on his back, and who was mean
enough to buy a lot of jewelry and never pay for it. Greenough told me
about the watch, and coral, and ring, and he’s going to send the bill to
Mr. Leighton. I should think you’d feel smart wearing the jimcracks.
Yes, I should.”

Edna was better when the letter came to her, and the world did not look
one half so dreary as it had done when viewed from her sick bed in that
little front room of Mrs. Dana’s. For the first time since the accident,
she had given some thought to her toilet, and had brushed and arranged
her beautiful hair, and thought of Charlie with a keen throb of pain as
she wound round her fingers the long curls he used so to admire. Edna
was proud of her hair, which so many people called beautiful, but which
Aunt Jerusha had set herself so strongly against. Twice had that
maiden’s scissors been in dangerous proximity to the mass of golden
brown, but something in the girl’s piteous expression had reminded her
of the dead man under the shadow of the cherry-trees, and the curls had
not been harmed. Edna thought of Aunt Jerusha now, as she shook back the
shining ringlets, which rippled all round her neck and shoulders, and
with the thought came a desire to know what that worthy woman would say,
and a wonder as to why she did not write. She was beginning to long for
some expression with regard to her conduct, even though it should be
anything but commendatory. She knew she would be blamed; she deserved
it, she thought, but she was not quite prepared for the harsh tone of
Aunt Jerusha’s letter, and she felt for a moment as if her heart would
burst with a sense of the injustice done to her.

One piece of information which the letter contained hurt her cruelly,
and that was the news concerning the jewelry, which Roy Leighton must
pay for, even to her wedding ring which she clutched at first with an
impulse to tear it from her finger and thrust it from her forever. But
the solemn words—“With this ring I thee wed”—sounded again in her ears,
and brought back that hour when she stood at Charlie’s side, loving him,
believing in him, trusting him implicitly. She did not ask herself how
much of that faith, and trust, and love was gone; she dared not do that,
for fear of what the answer might be. Charlie was dead, and that was
enough; and she wrung her hands helplessly and looked at the ring, the
seal of her marriage, but could not take it off then, even though Roy
Leighton must pay for it. She wrote to him again that very day, with
what sore heart and utter humiliation we have seen in her letter to him,
but with a firm determination to do what she promised him she would do,
namely: liquidate her indebtedness to him and arrange if possible with
the jeweller.

“I must go to work now,” she said to herself. “I can be idle no longer.”

But what to do, and where to seek employment in that city, where she was
an utter stranger, was the point which puzzled her greatly; and when
Jack Heyford came next to see her, she told him of her plans and asked
him for advice. Had he been rich, Jack would have offered to pay her
debts and make her free from want, for never was there a more generous,
unselfish heart than that which beat under his old worn coat. But Jack
was not rich, and his salary, though comparatively liberal, could not at
present warrant any additional expense to those he already had to meet;
and when she asked him if he knew of any scholars either in music or
drawing, which she would be likely to get, he replied that he _did_ know
of _one_, and it would be just the thing for her, too, and help to
relieve the tedium of sitting all day long in her chair, or reclining on
the couch. Annie should take lessons of Mrs. Churchill, and commence
to-morrow, if that would suit, and meantime he would inquire among his
friends, and tell them Edna’s story.

And so it was arranged that Edna should go to little Annie Heyford the
next day, at two o’clock, and give her first lesson in drawing.

“You will have no difficulty in finding your way,” Jack said. “I would
come for you myself, but might not be able to leave the store at the
hour.” Then, just before leaving, he added: “Suppose you make it one,
instead of two, and lunch with Annie. That will please her vastly, she
complains of eating alone so often.”

As there was no special reason why Edna should decline this invitation,
she accepted it readily; and that night, just as she was falling away to
sleep, and dreaming that she had more scholars than she could well
manage, and that her debt to Roy was nearly paid, Jack was conferring
with old Luna concerning the lunch of the next day.

“Get up a tip-top one, auntie,” he said, handing her a bill. “She was
half-starved in the seminary, I’ll warrant, and I don’t believe those
Danas know much about good cooking; anyway they _fry_ their beefsteak,
for I’ve smelled it, and that I call heathenish. So scare up something
nice, irrespective of the expense.”




                             CHAPTER XIII.
                              JACK’S HOME.


Jack’s four rooms on the second floor, No. 30 —— street, though plain
and poor, compared with the splendors of Oakwood, were very pleasant
rooms at all times; and on the morning of the day when Edna was
expected, they were swept and dusted, and put in order much earlier than
was usual for Aunt Luna, who was not gifted with remarkably swift powers
of locomotion.

The front room answered the double purpose of parlor by day and sleeping
room by night, the bed disappearing in the shape of a broad,
luxurious-looking sofa, or lounge, whose neat covering of green and
white chintz, with the soft, motherly cushions, gave no hint of the
bedding stowed carefully away beneath. The carpet also was green, of a
light, cheerful pattern, while the easy chairs were covered with the
same material. Plain muslin curtains were draped gracefully back from
the windows, in one of which a bird-cage was hanging, and in the other a
wire basket of moss, from which the German ivy hung in festoons, and
then was trained back to the wall, making for both the windows a
beautiful cornice, and reaching still further on to a pretty chromo
which it surrounded with a network of leaves. Over the mantel was
another and a larger-sized chromo, and on the wall opposite two or three
first-class engravings. These, with a few brackets and vases, a
book-case of well-chosen books, and a head of Schiller and Dante,
completed the furniture of the room, if we except the bright fire
blazing in the grate and the pretty lion’s-head rug lying before the
fender.

To the left of the front windows was a door opening into the hall
bedroom, Jack’s room, with its single bed, its strip of carpeting, its
one chair, its little square stand, and on the wall a porcelain-type of
Georgie, whose black eyes, though soft and beautiful, seemed to have in
them a look of contempt, as if they scorned their humble surroundings.

A narrow passage, with closets and shelves on either side, divided the
parlor from the room in the rear, which also did double service as
dining-room and kitchen, where Luna baked, and washed, and ironed, and
served her master’s meals with as much care and attention as if he had
been the richest man in the city, and dined each day from solid plate.

Old Luna’s sleeping apartment was the little room or closet off from the
kitchen, which she kept so neat and tidy that few would have shrunk from
resting there in her easy chair, or even from sleeping, if need be, in
her clean, wholesome-looking bed.

And here Jack lived content and happy till his mother died. With her
death a great light had gone from his dwelling, for the mother and son
were tenderly attached; but whatever Jack suffered, he suffered alone,
in the privacy of his own room, or out in the dark streets, which he
often traversed at night after his work was done. There was seldom a
trace of sadness in his genial, good-natured face when he went back to
Annie, who, since her accident and his mother’s death, had at times been
given to fits of weeping and depression.

“I want somethin’, and I don’t know,” was what she had said at first
when questioned as to the cause of her grief.

Gradually the want had resolved itself into an intense longing for
“sister Georgie,” whom the child regarded as little less than an angel,
almost worshipping the beautiful picture which she sometimes had brought
to her bed, where she could see it and talk to it when Jack was away and
Luna busy in the kitchen.

With all the eagerness of a child, she had waited for Georgie’s coming;
and when Jack’s telegram from Iona had told her there must necessarily
be a delay, she cried herself into a headache, and finally went to sleep
with her white cheek pressed against the portrait of Georgie, who was
not worthy of this child’s pure love, and whose heart was as cold and
hard as the block of porcelain which shadowed forth her marvellous
beauty.

It was a very sad heart which Jack Heyford carried up the stairs to his
home on that day of his return, for he knew how bitter was the
disappointment in store for the expectant little one, who had been
dressed and waiting so long, and whose blue eyes shone like stars when
the familiar step was heard upon the stairs. One look of welcome they
gave to Jack, and then darted past him out into the passage,—out into
vacancy; Georgie was not there.

“Oh, Jack,” and the eyes were like Georgie Burton’s, when looking afar
off. “Where is sister? Didn’t she come with you?”

Jack told her where Georgie was as gently as possible, and without a
word or tone which sounded like blame, and Annie listened to him; and
when he said, “she bade me tell you not to cry, but be a good girl, and
she will soon come to you,” the pretty lip quivered in a grieved kind of
way, and the breath came in quick gasps as the child tried to do her
sister’s bidding.

“Is it naughty to cry? then I won’t. I will try and be a good girl, but
oh, I am sorrier than Georgie can guess,” Annie said at last, and Jack
felt something rising to his lips like a curse upon the heartless woman
this little child loved so much.

He gave her the chocolates, and the doll, and the puzzle, and the book,
and sighed to see how quietly she put them away without so much as
tasting her favorite candies. And then he told her about the terrible
accident, and of Edna, who, he said was so young, and pretty, and who
was suffering such terrible sorrow. Annie was interested, and the tears
she had repressed to please Georgie, flowed in torrents now, as she
said:

“I am so sorry for the lady, and I want to see her so much, and I mean
to pray for her that Heaven will make it better for her sometime;” and
that night, while Edna in her lonely bed at Mrs. Dana’s was weeping over
her desolation and feeling so friendless and alone, a little crippled
child lay on its back, and with hands clasped reverently, prayed for the
poor lady whose husband was killed; prayed that “Heaven would bring it
right some day, and make it better, and make her well, and make her
happy, and make her another husband for Christ’s sake.” “I reckon that
will do,” Annie whispered softly. “Mother said, ‘ask for Christ’s sake,
and believe you’ll have it, and you will,’ but then”—and here a dark
doubt of unbelief began to creep in—“if that is so, why didn’t sister
come? I asked God to send her, and I believed He would just as hard, and
He didn’t. Maybe it’s that lie I told the other day;” and again the
waxen hands were folded, while the little trusting child asked, as she
had done many times, to be forgiven for the falsehood told to Jack two
weeks before.

She had confessed it to Jack, and he had forgiven her, and promised not
to tell Georgie when she came. She had also confessed it to God many
times, and asked Him not to let her do such naughty things; and now when
she told Him about it again, she felt as if that one sin was forgiven,
but away down in her heart was a shadow of unbelief, the first she had
ever known. She had trusted Heaven, and her faith was firm as a rock
that Georgie would come. But the contrary had been the case; Georgie had
not come; Heaven had not heard and answered her, and she could not
account for it. Poor child, she is not the first or the only one who has
found it hard to understand just what Christ meant when He said, “What
things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye shall receive
them, and ye shall have them.”




                              CHAPTER XIV.
                            EDNA AND ANNIE.


Bright and cheery as was the parlor at No. 30 on that autumnal morning
when Edna was expected, the brightest, prettiest thing by far in it was
the little girl whom Aunt Luna had dressed with so much care, and who
sat propped with cushions and pillows in her easy chair, with her hair
falling in soft curls about her face, and her eyes shining with eager
expectancy. She was a little vain, and as she settled herself among her
cushions and saw Aunt Luna’s evident admiration, she asked:

“Do I look nice, Aunt Luna? Do I make a pretty picture? I hope so, for
Mrs. Churchill is an _artist_, you know, and ’preciates such things.”

Aunt Luna’s reply was satisfactory, and after making some change in the
adjustment of the shawl on the arm of her chair, and lifting her dress
so as to show her high-heeled slipper with its scarlet rosette, Annie
was ready for her visitor. Nor had she long to wait ere a step was heard
on the stairs, and Aunt Luna opened the door to Edna. Jack had said she
was young and small, but neither Aunt Luna nor Annie was prepared for
any one so very young looking and so small as the little lady who asked
if Mr. Heyford lived there, and announced herself as Mrs. Churchill.

“Yes, he do live here,” a blithe voice replied, and Edna walked straight
up to the chair whence the voice came, and bending over the little girl
kissed her tenderly, saying:

“And you are Annie, I know.”

“And you are Mrs. Churchill,” Annie said, winding her arms around Edna’s
neck. “Jack said I’se sure to love you, and I know it, without his
saying so.”

That was their introduction to each other, and they grew familiar very
fast, so that before lunch was ready, Annie had told Edna how funny it
seemed to think her a big married woman, and how glad she was she had
come, and how sure she was to love her.

“I think I begin to know what Aunt Luna meant by God’s making it up to
me,” she said, after a moment’s silence, during which she had been
holding and caressing Edna’s hand.

Edna looked inquiringly at her, and she continued:

“I was so sorry about Georgie,—that’s sister, you know. You seen her,
Jack said.”

“Yes.”

And Edna gave a little shiver as she recalled the face which had looked
so coldly and proudly upon her.

It had evidently never looked thus to this little child, who went on:

“I cried so hard when she didn’t come, and was kind of mad at Heaven, I
guess, and Aunt Luna talked and said how He’d make it up some way, if I
was good, and so He sent me you, though it’s funny you didn’t go back
with that poor man. He was your beau, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, my husband,” Edna faltered, adding: “I was sick, hurt, you know.”

She could not explain why she had not gone with her husband’s body, as
it seemed natural that she should have done. Neither did Annie wait for
any explanation, but went on talking in her old-fashioned way, which
greatly surprised Edna, who was not much accustomed to children. Annie
was an odd mixture of childish simplicity and womanly maturity. From
having lived all her life with no other companions than grown-up people,
she was in some respects much older than her years, and astonished Edna
with her shrewd remarks and her mature ways of thinking. Georgie was the
theme of which she never tired, and Edna found herself feeling more
lenient toward the haughty woman whom she had instinctively disliked.
There must be something good in her, or this little child would not love
her so devotedly.

“The bestest sister and the beautifulest,” Annie said, and when Edna,
who had gathered from Jack that it was nearly two years since Georgie
had been in Chicago, remarked that she should hardly suppose Annie could
remember how she looked, Annie replied: “Oh yes, I ’members ’stinctly,
or thinks I do. Any way, I has her picture and her letters; they are so
nice. I want to show you one.”

She touched a little bell on the table beside her, and summoning Luna
from the kitchen, bade her bring the portfolio which held sister’s
letters.

“There they are; read any of them,” she said.

And more to please the child than from curiosity, Edna did read one of
the notes, bearing date six or seven months before, and as she read she
felt a growing interest and even liking for Georgie Burton, who, however
cold and proud she might be to strangers, showed a deep interest in
Annie’s well-being.

One thing struck Edna forcibly, and that was the hope Georgie expressed
that her dear little sister would grow up truthful, and break herself of
the habit she had of sometimes equivocating. At Annie’s request Edna
read the letter aloud, and when she had finished it she saw that Annie’s
face was crimson with a look of sorrow and shame.

“I didn’t know as ’twas that one,” she said, “and I don’t want you to
hate me. I did use to tell lies, oh, so many”—and the voice sank to a
whisper—“and mother spanked me once and wrote it to Georgie, and told me
how wicked it was, and I do try not to now, so much, though Jack says I
will _romance_ a little, that’s what he calls it, meaning, you know,
that I made up _some_. It’s my blood; I heard Jack tell mother so. Bad
blood, he said, though that time I cut my finger so and bleeded so much,
it looked like Jack’s did when he had the nose-bleed.”

She had taken the matter literally, and Edna could not repress a smile
at her interpretation of _bad blood_, while she began to wonder how much
of this same blood, if any, was in Jack Heyford’s veins. Georgie was
only his half-sister she knew, while Annie was still further removed,
although she called him brother. Any questions, however, which she might
have put to Annie with regard to the relationship, were prevented by the
appearance of Luna with the lunch.

It was a very tempting lunch, and Edna felt her lost appetite returning
when she saw the oysters fried to just the brown she liked, the slices
of rich baked ham, the delicate rolls, home-made and fresh from the
oven, the creamy butter, the pot of raspberry jam, and the steaming
chocolate which Annie liked so much and was occasionally allowed to
drink. A dish of apples and oranges with clusters of rich purple grapes
completed the bill of fare, and Annie proved herself a very competent
little hostess, as she did the honors of the table and urged the good
things upon Edna, who enjoyed it nearly as much as Annie herself, and
forgot in part the dark shadow which had fallen upon her life. As if
they had been princes lunching in some palatial mansion, old Luna waited
upon them, showing a skill and readiness which rather surprised Edna
until she heard from the negress herself that she had been a house
servant in her late mistress’s family in St. Augustine, Florida, that
her duties had been wholly confined to the dining-room and its
appointments until three years since, when she came to Mrs. Heyford.

Since then, to use her own words, “she has done little of everything,
tend here, tend there, bake, and wash, and iron, and do what only
low-lived trash does at home.”

She seemed a very capable, intelligent woman, and evidently regarded
“Master Jack and Miss Annie” with feelings amounting almost to
adoration. Of Georgie she said but little, and that little showed
conclusively her opinion of a young lady “who would turn her back on her
own flesh and blood, and never come a nigh even when they sickened and
died, just because they was poor and couldn’t give her all the jimcracks
she wanted.”

“She was here oncet, two years or so ago,” she said to Edna, who, after
lunch, went with her to the kitchen for a moment. “She staid about three
weeks, and seemed to think it was such a piece of condescension on her
part to do even that. And we waited on her as if she’d been a queen, and
Master Jack’s bill for the ices, and creams, and fruit, and carriages,
which he got for her was awful, and pinched us for three months or more.
I must say though that she took wonderfully to Miss Annie. Never seen
anything like it. Don’t understand it, no how, and ’taint none of my
business if I did.”

Here Aunt Luna broke off abruptly, and Edna went back to Annie, to whom
she gave the first lesson in drawing. Annie bade fair to prove an apt
pupil, and Edna felt all her old ambition and love for the work coming
back as she directed the child’s hand, and then with a few rapid curves
and lines made a little sketch of her pupil’s face. The likeness was
perfect, and Annie screamed with delight as she took it in her hand and
inspected it more closely.

“It looks some like Jack,” she said, “but none like Georgie. I wish I
was like her, but Jack says I’m most like my father.”

“How long has he been dead?” Edna asked, and Annie replied:

“Oh, ever so many years; before I was born, I guess. I never ’member
him.”

Edna laughed heartily at this characteristic reply, and as the afternoon
was drawing to a close, she bade her pupil good-by, promising to come
again the next day if Annie felt equal to another lesson so soon.

Regularly each day after this Edna went to Annie Heyford, who improved
rapidly and evinced almost as much talent for drawing as Edna herself.
Jack, who sometimes came in while Edna was there, became greatly
interested and tried to secure other pupils for Edna. But his immediate
friends were mostly too poor to incur any additional expense, while the
ladies whom he only knew as he served them behind the counter did not
care to patronize a total stranger who had no recommendation save that
given her by her enthusiastic admirer, Jack. And so poor Edna was not
making money very fast, and Jack was contemplating taking lessons
himself by way of adding a little to her store, when an event occurred
which changed the whole tenor of Edna’s life and drove her to seek a
home elsewhere than in Chicago. Without a shadow of warning, Mrs. Dana
was suddenly smitten with paralysis, and after three days of silent
suffering, died, leaving her five children to such care as the
motherless poor can find. For a week or two Edna devoted herself to them
entirely, and then the father startled her with an offer of marriage,
saying, by way of excuse for his haste, that he must have a housekeeper,
that he preferred her to any one he knew, and that in order to save talk
they might as well be married then if she was willing.

Edna did not leave his house at once as some would have done, for she
knew he meant well, though he had erred greatly in his judgment of her.
Firmly, but kindly, she declined his offer, and then again stunned and
bewildered, sat down to think what she should do next, and as she
thought, her heart began to go out longingly for that old house by the
graveyard. It was her home, the only one she had ever known, and Aunt
Jerusha, with all her peculiarities, had many excellent traits of
character, and would perhaps be glad to see her by this time.

Since that first letter, no communication whatever had passed between
them, and Edna did not know how much Aunt Jerry might have softened
toward her. As she could no longer remain with Mr. Dana, and as she
could not afford to board elsewhere, and would not accept of the home
which Jack Heyford offered her temporarily, it seemed that the only
thing left for her was to go back to Aunt Jerry until some better
situation presented itself to her. Jack himself advised it, after he
found she would not stay with him, and so Edna bade adieu to Chicago,
and with a sad heart turned her face toward Aunt Jerry, feeling many
misgivings with regard to her reception the nearer she came to home.




                              CHAPTER XV.
                              AUNT JERRY.


Edna had planned it so as to reach home on Thanksgiving day, thinking
within herself:

“Her heart will be softer on that day, sure, and she will not be so hard
on me.”

Fortunately for her she saw no one in Canandaigua whom she knew, for the
morning train, which was a little behind time, arrived just before the
departure of the stage which would take her to the Hill. She was the
only passenger, and as she rode along over the rough, uneven road, she
had ample time for reviewing the past, and living over in fancy all she
had experienced since last she traversed that route, drawn by Deacon
Williams’s old white horse, with Aunt Jerry beside her, prim and
straight, and grimly silent, save when she gave her niece some wholesome
advice, or reproved her for what she had not done quite as much as for
what she had. Then she was Edna Browning, the happy school-girl, who
knew no care sharper than Aunt Jerry’s tongue, and from that she was
escaping for a time, for she was going back to school, to all the fun
and frolic which she always managed to extract from her surroundings;
and Charlie was there to meet her,—aye, did meet her right by the gate,
as the old white horse drew up, and would have helped her out, but for
the signal she gave that he must not notice her. Aunt Jerry was death on
academy boys, and her face assumed a still more vinegary expression as
she asked:

“What young squirt was that who looked as if he was going to speak?”

Edna had not replied, as she was busily occupied in climbing over the
wheel, and so Aunt Jerry had never heard of Charlie Churchill until the
telegram was brought to her announcing his death. That scene was very
fresh in Edna’s mind, and her tears flowed like rain as she thought of
herself as she was then, and as she was now, scarcely three months
later. A wife, a widow, friendless and alone, going back to Aunt Jerry
as the only person in the world on whom she had a claim.

“She won’t turn me off,” she said to herself. “She can’t, when I’ve
nowhere to go; and I mean to be so humble, and tell her the whole story,
and I’ll try to please her harder than I ever did before.”

Thus Edna reasoned with herself, until from the summit of a hill she
caught sight of the tall poplars, and saw in the distance the spire of
St. Paul’s. Behind it was Aunt Jerry’s house; she was almost there, and
her heart beat painfully as she tried to think what to say, how to word
her greeting so as not to displease. It did not occur to her that
probably Aunt Jerry was at church, until the stage left her at the gate,
and she tried the door, which was locked. Fortunately, she knew just
where to look for the key, and as she stooped to get it, Tabby, who had
been sitting demurely on the windowsill, with one eye on the warm room
from which she was shut out, and one on the church whence she expected
her mistress to come, jumped down, and with a _meow_ of welcome came
purring and rubbing against Edna’s dress, and showing,—as much as a dumb
creature can show,—her joy at seeing her young playmate again. Edna took
the animal in her arms, and hugging it to her bosom, let fall a shower
of kisses and tears upon the long, soft fur, saying aloud:

“You, at least, are glad, old Tabby, and I’ll take your welcome as a
good omen of another.”

She let herself into the house, and with Tabby still nestled in her
arms, stood looking around the familiar room. It seemed to her years
since she was there, and she found herself wondering to find it so
unchanged. The same rag carpet which she had helped to make, with what
weariness and tears she could not recall without a shudder. The same
calico-covered lounge, with Aunt Jerry’s work-basket and foot-stove
tucked away under it, the same fall leaf table with its plaid spread of
red and green, Aunt Jerry’s straight-back chair by the oven door, the
clock upon the mantel, and could she believe her senses, a picture of
herself upon the wall above the fireplace; a photograph taken three
years before by a travelling artist, whose movable car had ornamented
the common in front of the church, a terror to all the horses, and a
thing of wonder and fascination to all the school boys and girls, most
of whom first and last saw the inside of the mysterious box, and came
out reproduced. Edna had picked blackberries to pay for her picture, and
sat unknown to Aunt Jerusha, whose comment on the likeness was, “Better
have saved the money for something else. You ain’t so handsome that you
need want to be repeated. It looks enough sight better than you do.”

Edna knew that the picture did not look half as well as she did. The
mouth was awry, the chin elevated, the hands immense, and the whole body
indicative of awkwardness, and lack of taste on the artist’s part. But
it was herself, and Edna prized it and kept it hidden away from Aunt
Jerry, who threatened to burn it when she found her niece looking at it
instead of knitting on her stocking. Latterly, Edna had ceased to care
for it, and did not know where it was, but Aunt Jerry had found it and
put it in a little frame made of hemlock twigs, and hung it over the
mantel; and Edna took heart from that, for it showed that Aunt Jerry had
a warm place for her memory at least, or she would not preserve that
horrid caricature of her.

“She is not so hard after all,” Edna said, as she laid aside her wraps,
and then, as she remembered something she had read about there being a
parlor and a kitchen in every person’s heart, and the treatment one
received depending very much upon which room they get into, she thought,
“I guess I’ve always been in the kitchen, but hereafter I’ll stay in the
parlor.”

The stove, which Aunt Jerry used in winter, was closed tightly, but Edna
caught the odor of something cooking in the oven, and opening the door,
saw the nicely dressed turkey simmering slowly in preparation for Miss
Pepper’s dinner, and then the impulse seized her to hasten the fire, and
have the dinner ready by the time her aunt came in from church. The
vegetables were prepared and standing in pans of water, and Edna put
them on the stove, and basted the turkey, and set the table with the
best cloth and dishes, just as she used to do on Thanksgiving day, and
felt her old identity coming back as she moved about among the familiar
things, and wondered what Aunt Jerry would say, and how long before she
would come.

Church was out at last, she knew by the pealing of the organ, and by
seeing Mr. Swift go behind the church and unhitch his gray horses. There
was a brisk step outside the gate; Aunt Jerry was coming, and with her
hands clasped together, and her head slightly bent forward in the
attitude of intense expectancy, Edna stood waiting for her.

There was a heightened color on her cheek, and her eyes shone with such
brilliancy as to make them seem almost black, while her long curls fell
forward and partly covered her face like some bright satin veil.

To say that Miss Pepper was surprised, would but faintly express the
perfect amazement with which she regarded the apparition which met her
view as she hastily opened the door, her movements accelerated by the
mysterious smells of savory cooking which had greeted her olfactories
when outside the gate. And yet Edna had really been much in the
spinster’s mind that Thanksgiving morning, when she bustled about here
and there and made her preparations for her solitary dinner,—solitary
unless Miss Martha Ann Barnes, the only intimate friend Miss Pepper had,
could be induced to spend the remainder of the day with her.

“It will seem more Christian-like and pleasant to have somebody sit
opposite you at table on such a day as this, won’t it, Tabby?” Miss
Pepper said to her cat, to whom she was sometimes given to talking, and
who showed her appreciation of the remark by a friendly mew and by
rubbing against her mistress’ dress.

And then Miss Pepper’s thoughts went straying back into the past, forty
years ago, and she saw a group of noisy, happy children, of which she
had been the merriest, the ringleader, they had called her at first, and
afterward the flirt, who cared but little how many hearts she broke
when, at the gay Thanksgiving time, she joined them at her grandfather’s
house among the Vermont hills, and with her glowing beauty, set off by
some bright bit of ribbon or string of beads, made sad havoc with the
affections of her young male relatives. There was a slight jerking of
her shoulders, and a bridling of her head, as Miss Pepper remembered
those far-off days, and then her thoughts came a little nearer to the
present time, to thirty-five years ago that Thanksgiving day, and the
dress of white brocade, with its bertha of dainty lace, and the orange
flowers sent by a city cousin who “could not be present on the happy
occasion.” The flowers were never worn, neither was the lace, nor the
brocade; and yellow and soiled with time, they lay together, far down in
the old red chest, where the linen sheets and the sprigs of lavender
were, and where no one had ever seen them but Miss Pepper herself.

As regularly as Thanksgiving day came round, she opened the red chest,
and undoing the precious parcel, shook out the heavy folds of the
brocade, and held the orange flowers a moment in her hands, and wondered
where _he_ was to-day, and if he thought of thirty-five years ago, and
what had almost been.

As she had always done so, Miss Pepper did now on the day of which we
write; and did it, too, earlier than had been her wont. Usually her
visit to the chest was reserved for the afternoon, but this morning
there was a strange yearning at her heart, a longing for something her
life had missed, and before her breakfast dishes were washed she had
made her yearly visit to the chest, and sitting down beside it, as by an
open grave, with the faded brocade across her lap, and the orange
flowers in her hand, said softly to herself, “If this had come to pass I
mightn’t have been alone to-day.” And then, as she remembered the girl
of thirty-five years ago, and thought of herself as she was now, she
arose, and going to the glass, inspected, with a grim kind of
resignation, the face which met her view; the thin, sharp features, the
straight nose, with its slightly glaring nostrils, the firmly compressed
lips, the broad, low forehead, and the round black eyes which age had
not dimmed one whit, though it had given them a sharper, harder
expression than in their youth they had worn.

“And they called me handsome,” she said, as she stood contemplating
herself. “I was Jerry then, pretty Jerry Pepper, but now I’m nobody but
Aunt Jerusha, or worse yet, old Mother Pepper, as the school boys call
me.”

And with a sigh, the lonely woman locked up her treasures till another
year, and went back to her household cares and her lonely life. But
there was a softer look upon her face, and when, as she was dusting, she
came to Edna’s picture, which from some unaccountable impulse she had
only a few days before framed and hung upon the wall, she held her
feather duster suspended a moment, and looked earnestly at the face of
the young girl who for twelve years had been with her on Thanksgiving
day. And as she looked there arose a half wish that Edna was there now,
disgraced though she thought her to be by her unlucky marriage.

“She bothered me a sight, but then it’s kind of lonesome without her. I
wonder what she’s doing to-day,” she said, as she resumed her dusting
and thought again of Martha Ann Barnes, who might be induced to occupy
Edna’s old seat at the table.

But Martha Ann was not at church. Miss Pepper must eat her dinner alone;
and with the thought that “it did not pay to buy that head of celery and
make a parade just for herself,” she turned to the Prayer-Book and
minister, and felt her ire rise so high at his bowing so low in the
creed, that, as she wrote to Mrs. Churchill, she withheld a dollar and
gave as her offering only fifty cents; taking care as she came out of
church to tell what she had done to one who she knew would communicate
it to her pastor. Excellent Miss Pepper! the Thanksgiving sermon must
have done her a world of good, and she went home prepared to enjoy as
best she could her solitary dinner, but not prepared to find her niece
waiting there for her.




                              CHAPTER XVI.
                          AUNT JERRY AND EDNA.


If Miss Pepper had owned the truth, she was not sorry to see Edna, and
the feeling of loneliness which all the morning had been tugging at her
heart, began to give way at once; but she was one of those people who
feel bound to “stick to their principles,” whether right or wrong, and
as one of her principles was that her niece had behaved very shabbily
and deserved punishing, she steeled her heart against her, and putting
on her severest look and manner, said to her:

“Edna Browning, how dare you come here after disgracing me so?”

This was the speech with which Miss Pepper had intended to greet her
niece if she ever came back unannounced, and she had repeated it many
times to herself, and to Tabby, and to the teakettle boiling on the
stove, and the clock ticking upon the mantel, and from having said it so
often, she had come to repeat it without any great amount of genuine
indignation; but this Edna did not know, and the eager, expectant look
on her face died out in a moment as she heard the words of greeting.

“Oh, auntie,” she cried, and her little hands clasped each other more
tightly as she took a step forward, “don’t speak so to me. I am so
desolate, and I had not anywhere else to go. I thought you would be
lonely eating dinner alone, and might be glad to see me.”

“Glad to see you after all you’ve done! You must think me a saint, which
I don’t pretend to be,” was the harsh reply, as Aunt Jerusha hurried
past Edna, without noticing the hand involuntarily stretched out toward
her.

Going into her bedroom to lay her bonnet and cloak aside, Miss Pepper’s
lip quivered a little as she said to herself,—

“The child has suffered, and no mistake, but I’m not going to be talked
over at once. She deserves a good lesson. If she was a youngster, I’d
spank her smartly and be done with it, but as I can’t do that I shall
carry a stiff upper lip a spell, till she’s fairly cowed.”

With this intention Miss Pepper returned to the attack, and once having
opened her volley of abuse,—reproof she called it,—she did not know
where to stop, and said far more than she really felt or had at first
any intention of saying. The runaway match with a mere boy; the
meanness, aye the dishonesty of breaking the contract with the principal
of the seminary, and leaving that four hundred dollars for some one else
to pay; the littleness of wearing jewelry which a stranger must pay for,
and the wickedness of decoying a young man into marriage, and thereby
causing him to lose his life, and making her a murderess, were each in
turn brought up and eloquently handled; while Edna stood with bowed head
and heard it quietly, until her aunt reached the _ring_, and asked if
she was not ashamed to wear it. Then it was that the “pale-gray look
came over her face and the steel-gray look in her eye,” as she took the
golden band from her finger, and laid it away in her purse, saying in a
voice Miss Pepper would never have recognized as Edna’s,—

“You are right, auntie. I am a murderess, and I ought not to wear this
ring until I have paid for it myself, and I never will.”

Something in her tone and manner stopped Miss Pepper, and for a moment
she gazed curiously at this young girl who seemed to expand into a
dignified, self-assured woman as she drew off her wedding ring, and,
putting it away from her sight, walked quietly to the window, where she
stood looking out upon the dull November sky from which a few snowflakes
were beginning to fall. Miss Pepper was puzzled, and for an instant
seriously contemplated taking back a part, at least, of what she had
said, but that would not have been in accordance with her theory of
managing young people, and so she contented herself with doing instead
of saying. She made the kind of gravy for the turkey which she
remembered Edna liked, and put an extra lump of butter in the squash,
and brought from the cellar a tumbler of cranberry jelly and a pot of
peach preserves, and opened a bottle of pickled cauliflower, and warmed
one of her best mince pies, and made black tea instead of green, because
Edna never drank the latter, and then, when all was ready, said, in a
half-conciliatory tone, “Come now, the victuals is ready.”

Then Edna came away from the window and took her seat at the table, and
took the heaped-up plate offered to her, and made some casual remarks
about the _price of butter_, and asked if Blossom gave as much milk as
ever, but she did not eat. She had been very hungry, but the hunger was
gone now, and so she sipped her tea and toyed with her fork, and
occasionally put it to her lips, but never with anything on it which
Aunt Jerusha could see. In short, the dinner was a failure; and when it
was over Aunt Jerry removed her turkey nearly as whole as when it went
upon the table, and carried back her cranberries and peaches untouched,
and felt as if she had been badly used that her dinner was thus
slighted. Edna did not offer to help her as she cleared the dinner away,
but sat with folded hands looking out to where a brown, blighted
rose-bush was gently swayed by the wind.

Once when Aunt Jerry could endure the silence no longer, she said:

“What under the sun do you see out there? What are you looking at?”

“My future life,” Edna replied, without so much as turning her head, and
Aunt Jerry gave an extra whisk to her dish towel as she went on washing
her dishes.

As it began to grow dark, Miss Pepper brought out her candle, and was
about to light it, when Edna started suddenly, and turning her white,
stony face toward her aunt, said:

“Don’t light the candle now. I like the dark the best. I want to talk
with you, and can do it better if I do not see your face.”

There was a ring in the voice which puzzled Aunt Jerry a little, but she
humored her niece, and felt glad that at last Edna was going to talk.
But she was not quite prepared for what followed when her niece, who had
suddenly outgrown all fear of her aunt, spoke of some things in the
past, which, had they been different, might have borne a different
result and have kept her from doing what she had done.

“I believe you meant well, Aunt Jerry,” she said, “and perhaps some
would say you did well. You gave me a home when I had none; gave me food
and clothes, and taught me many things; but for the one great thing
which children need the most and miss the most, I did hunger so
terribly. I wanted some love, auntie; some petting, some kind, caressing
act which should tell me I was more to you than the poor orphan whom you
took from charity. But you never gave it, never laid your hand upon me
fondly, never called me a pet name, never kissed me in your life, and we
living together these dozen years. You chide me for turning so readily
to a stranger whom I had only known for a few months, and preferring him
to my own flesh and blood. Auntie, in the few months I knew Charlie
Churchill, he gave me more love, more kindness than I had ever known
from you in the twelve years we lived together, and when he asked me to
go with him, as I did, I hesitated, for I knew it was wrong; but when
your letter came threatening to bring me home, the thought of the long,
dreary winter during which scarcely a kind, pleasant word would be
spoken to me, was more than I could bear, and so I went with Charlie.”

Edna paused a moment with the hope that what she had said might bring
some expression of regret from the woman sitting so straight, and prim,
and silent in the chair near by. But it did not, and as Edna could not
see her face she never dreamed of the effect her words had produced, and
how the great lumps were swelling in her aunt’s throat, as that peculiar
woman forced down the impulse of her better nature which did prompt her
to say she had been to blame. To confess herself in error was a hard
thing for Miss Pepper to do, and glad that the darkness prevented her
niece from seeing the tear which actually rolled down her cheek, she
maintained a perfect silence while Edna told her more of Charlie, and of
her life in Chicago, and her indebtedness to Roy, and her resolve to
cancel it as well as to pay for her education if her aunt would wait
patiently till she could earn it.

“I am very tired,” she said, when she had finished her story. “I rode
all night, you know, and if you don’t mind being left alone so early, I
think I’ll go to bed. I shall find my room the same as ever, I suppose.”

Then Aunt Jerry arose and struck a light, and without looking at her
niece, said to her: “Hadn’t you better go up to the front chamber? It’s
a nicer bed, you know; nicer every way. I guess you better try it.”

This was a great concession on Aunt Jerry’s part, and Edna was touched
by it, but she preferred her old room, she said; she should not feel at
home elsewhere, and taking the candle from Aunt Jerry’s hand she said
good-night, and went up the steep, narrow stairs she had so often
climbed in childhood. As she reached the landing, Aunt Jerry called
after her:

“You’ll find a blanket in the chest if there ain’t clothes enough. You
better take it, anyway, for it is cold to-night.”

This was another olive branch, and Edna accepted it as such, and took
the blanket more to please her aunt than because she needed it. Her room
was the same as ever, with the exception of a few rolls of carpet-rags
which were lying in one corner, and at which Edna looked with a kind of
nervous dread, as if they had been cut and sewed by her own unwilling
hands. It was too dark outside to distinguish more than the faint
outline of the tombstones in the graveyard, but Edna singled out her
father’s, and putting out her candle knelt down by the low window and
gazed long and earnestly at the spot where her father slept. She was
bidding his grave farewell, it might be forever, for her resolution was
taken to go away from there, and find a place among entire strangers.

“It is better so,” she said, as she leaned her hot forehead against the
cool window-pane. “’Tis better so, and father would bid me go, if he
could speak. Oh, father, if you had not died, all this might have been
spared to me.”

Then, as she remembered her other Father, her Heavenly one, and His
promise to the orphan, she clasped her hands over her face and prayed
earnestly for His protection and blessing upon her wherever she might
go. And then she thought of Aunt Jerry, and asked that God would bless
her, too, and if in what she had said that night there was any thing
harsh and wrong, He would forgive her for it, and help her to make
amends. Her prayers ended, she crept into her bed, which seemed, with
its softness and warmth, to embrace and hold her as a mother might have
done, and so embraced and held, she soon fell away to sleep, and forgot
all that was past, and ceased to dread what might be in store for her.

Meantime Aunt Jerry sat in the room below, with her feet on the stove
hearth, her hands locked together around her knees, and her head bent
forward until her forehead almost touched her dress. Perhaps she
maintained this attitude to accommodate Tabby, who had mounted upon her
back and nestled across her neck, and perhaps she did it the better to
think intently, for she was thinking of all Edna had said to her with
reference to her childhood, and wondering if, after all, her theory was
wrong, and children were like chickens, which needed brooding from the
mother hen.

“But sakes alive, how was I to know that,—I, a dried-up old maid, who
never had a baby of my own, and never held one either, except that young
one of Mrs. Atwood’s that I stood sponsor for, and almost dropped when I
presented it? If things had turned out different, why, I should have
been different.”

And with a little sigh as she thought of the yellow brocade in the chest
upstairs, Miss Pepper put Tabby from her neck, and bringing out her
prayer-book read the Gospel and Epistle and Collect for the day, and
then kneeling by her chair said the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, and a
few words of her own improvising, to the effect that if she was too hard
the Lord would thaw her out and make her softer, and help her somehow to
make it up to Edna, and then she went to bed.

Edna was hungry the next morning, and did full justice to the cold roast
turkey and nicely browned potato, and when her aunt asked if she would
like some cranberry jelly, she said she would, for she felt that her
aunt wanted her to have it, and did not begrudge the journey to the
cellar in quest of it. There was but little talk on either side, until
Edna asked if the stage went out the same hour as usual, and announced
her intention of going away. Then Aunt Jerry spoke her mind again, and
said Edna “was a fool to go sky-larkin’ off alone, when she was welcome
there, and could get plenty of scholars too, if that was what she
wanted;” and she even went so far as to say “they might as well let
bygones be bygones, and begin anew, and see if they couldn’t pull
together a little better.”

But Edna was not to be persuaded from her purpose. She did not know
exactly where she was going, she said, but would let her aunt know when
she was located, and if she did not succeed she might perhaps come back.

“That is, if you will let me. This is all the home I have at present,
you know,” she added, looking wistfully up in her aunt’s face, as if for
some token that she was cared for by that undemonstrative woman, who
scolded the driver for bringing in so much snow and mud when he came for
Edna’s trunk, and scolded the boy who came to help him for leaving the
door open, and did it all to hide what she really felt at parting with
her niece.

“Of course I’ll let you. I’d be a heathen to turn out my own flesh and
blood,” she said, in reply to Edna’s remark, and then as the driver’s
shrill “all ready” was heard, she gave her hand to Edna, who would have
kissed her but for the forbidding look upon her face, and the pin
between her teeth.

Aunt Jerry went with her to the stage, and stood looking on until she
was comfortably seated, and then, as the driver mounted to his box and
gathered up his reins, she said, “Wall, good-by again,” with a tone in
her voice which made Edna throw back her veil to look at her more
closely. But the horses, obedient to the lash, had started forward, and
Aunt Jerry was left, feeling more alone than she had ever before felt in
her life.

“I wonder if she would have staid if I’d been more outspoken, and told
her how much I really wanted her?” Aunt Jerry said, as she returned to
the house and began to put it to rights. “But that’s the way with me. I
can’t say what I feel. I guess I’m ugly, if I do belong to the Church. I
let him go when a word would have kept him, only I was too proud to
speak it; and now I’ve lost her, just as I was beginning to know that I
did like her some. I wish she knew how near crying I was when she said
so queer-like, ‘You never kissed me, auntie, in my life, and we living
together these dozen years.’ Don’t she know I ain’t the kissing sort?
Still, I might have kissed her when a little child, and not hurt
myself.”

She was dusting the clock and the mantel, and when she came to the
little picture in the rustic frame, she stopped, and continued her
soliloquy:

“I wonder if she noticed that. If she did, she must know I think
something of her, if I never did kiss her, and make a fuss. The likeness
ain’t much like her, any way, but still it’s her picture, and I’ve half
a mind,—yes, I b’lieve I will;” and reaching up her hand, the strange
woman, who in twelve years had never shown her orphan niece a single
mark of genuine affection, took down that photograph and kissed it.

That was a great deal for her to do, and being done, she began to feel
as if she had made atonement for all that had, been wrong in herself
heretofore, and that Edna really ought now to come back. But Edna had
gone, and as the days went by and brought no news of her, Aunt Jerry
began to grow indignant, and finally relieved herself by writing to Mrs.
Churchill the letter we have seen. Roy’s reply and the check threw her
into a violent rage, and after letting him know her mind, she washed her
hands, as she said, of the whole of them, and settled back into her
lonely life, sharper, harsher than before, and more disposed to find
fault with her clergyman and battle with his decided tendency to High
Church and Ritualism.




                             CHAPTER XVII.
                            WHERE EDNA WENT.


To Canandaigua first, but not to the seminary, nor yet the jeweller’s,
as she had once thought of doing. She had heard from her aunt that Mr.
Greenough was paid, and she shrank from meeting him face to face, or
from seeing any of her old friends. So she sat quietly in the ladies’
room, waiting for the first train going east, and thinking it would
never come. She had bought her ticket for Albany, but, with her thick
black veil drawn closely over her face, the ticket agent never suspected
that she was the gay, light-hearted girl he used sometimes to see at the
station, and who recently had become so noted for the tragic ending of
her marriage.

No one recognized her, for it was not the hour when the seminary girls
were ever at the depot, and when, at last, the train came and took her
away with it, nobody was the wiser for her having been there.

And _where_ was she going? Have you, my reader, ever crossed the
mountain range between Pittsfield and Albany? And if you have, do you
remember how many little villages you saw, some to the right, some to
the left, and all nestled among and sheltered by those tall mountains
and rocky hills, with here and there a stream of water, as clear and
bright as crystal, rippling along under the shadow of the willow and the
birch, or dancing headlong down some declivity?

Edna was bound for one of these towns, where Uncle Phil Overton had
lived for many years. He was her great uncle on her mother’s side,
though she had never heard of him until she met her cousin, Mrs. Dana,
in Chicago. Mrs. Dana had known Mr. Overton well, and had lived with him
for a few months while she taught in the little academy which stood upon
the common. He was an eccentric old man, who for years had lived among
the mountains, in the same yellow farm-house, a mile, or more, from the
village, which represented to him the world, and which we call Rocky
Point.

Edna could not tell why her thoughts kept turning to Uncle Phil as they
did. In her utter despair, while listening to Aunt Jerry’s abusive
greeting, her heart had cried out:

“Oh, what shall I do?”

“Go to Uncle Phil,” was the answer which came to her cry, and she had
clung to that as a drowning man to a straw.

Mrs. Dana had said he was kind and generous, if you touched the right
chord. He had no wife, or children, but lived alone with a colored
woman, who had been in the family for years. He was getting to be
old,—sixty, if not more,—and, perhaps, he would be glad of some young
creature in the house, or, at all events, would let her stay till she
could look about and find something to do. Maybe she could teach in the
academy. Mrs. Dana had done so, and Edna felt that her acquirements were
certainly equal to those of her cousin. And so she was going to Rocky
Point, and Albany lay in her way, and she stopped there until Monday,
and took her watch and coral to a jeweller’s, and asked what they were
worth.

It was a beautiful little watch, and the chain was of exquisitely
wrought gold; and, as the jeweller chanced to be an honest man, he told
her frankly what it was worth, but said, as it was second-hand, he could
not dispose of it so readily, and consequently could not afford to give
her quite so much as if it were new. Edna accepted his offer, and, with
a bitter pang, left the watch and coral lying in the glass case, and,
going back to the hotel, wrote a letter to Roy, and sent him one hundred
dollars.

How near Roy seemed to her there in Albany, which was not so very far
from Leighton Place, and how she was tempted to take the New York train,
and go to Charlie’s home; not into it, but to the town, where she could
see it and visit Charlie’s grave. But a few moments’ reflection showed
her the inexpediency of such an act. She had no money to waste in
useless trips. She should need it all, and more, unless Uncle Phil
opened his door to her; and so she put the scheme aside, and took,
instead, the Boston train, which long before noon left her upon the
platform at Rocky Point. Everybody knew Uncle Phil Overton, and half a
dozen or more answered her questions at once, and wondered who she was,
and what the queer old chap would do with such a dainty bit of
femininity as she seemed to be. One man, a farmer, whose road homeward
lay past the Overton place, offered to take her there, and she was soon
riding along through scenery so wild and romantic, even in early
December, as to elicit from her many an exclamation of surprise and
delight, while her fingers fairly ached to grasp her pencil and paper
and sketch some of the beautiful views with which the neighborhood
abounded. The man was very respectful, but rather inquisitive; and as
his curiosity was in no wise abated by the sight of her glowing face
when, at the top of a hill, she threw back her veil, and asked him to
stop a moment while she gazed at the scenery around her, he began to
question her, and found that she was Phil Overton’s grand-niece, an
orphan without friends, and that she had come to Rocky Point, hoping to
find something to do. Did he know whether they were in want of a teacher
in the academy, and did any of the scholars take lessons in drawing or
music? She could teach both, though drawing was her preference.

Mr. Belknap was very sorry to tell her that the old academy was
closed,—“played out,” he said; and the “Deestrict” School had been
commenced for a week, or more. “But then,” he added, as he saw the look
of disappointment on Edna’s face, “maybe we could scare up a s’leck
school. We had one last winter, kep’ by a man in a room of the academy;
but he was a poor stick, and the boys raised the very old Harry with
him. They wouldn’t with you, a slip of a girl. Ain’t you pretty young to
teach?”

“Yes, perhaps so; but I must do something,” Edna replied.

She did not tell him she was a widow; and, seeing her clothed in so deep
mourning, the man naturally concluded it was for her parents, and he
began to feel a deep interest in her, telling her she might count on his
children if she opened a school; that he would also help her to get
scholars, if needful, and then he asked if she had any idea of the kind
of man Uncle Phil Overton was. Something in Mr. Belknap’s question set
Edna’s heart to beating rapidly, but before she could reply, they turned
the corner in the road and came close to the house.

“I wish you success with Uncle Phil,” Mr. Belknap said, as he handed
Edna from the wagon and deposited her trunk upon the stoop. “Maybe I and
the girls will drop in to-night and see how you get on,” he added, as he
climbed over the wheel, and chirruping to his horse, drove off, leaving
Edna standing by the door, whose huge brass knocker sent back a dull,
heavy echo, but did not for some little time bring any answering
response.




                             CHAPTER XVIII.
                            AT UNCLE PHIL’S.


It was one of those old-fashioned farm-houses rarely found outside of
New England, and even there growing more and more rare, as young
generations arise with cravings for something new, and a feeling of
having outgrown the old homestead with its “front entry” and crooked
stairway leading to another “entry” above; its two “square rooms” in
front and its huge kitchen and smaller sleeping apartment in the rear.
Those who do not emigrate to some more genial atmosphere, where their
progressive faculties have free scope to grow, have come to feel a
contempt for the old brown houses which once dotted the New England
hills so thickly; and so these veterans of a past century have gradually
given way to dwellings of a more modern style, with wide halls and long
balconies and bay-windows, and latterly the much-admired French roofs.
But Uncle Phil Overton was neither young nor a radical, nor was there
anything progressive in his taste. As his house had been forty years
ago, when by his father’s death and will it came to him, so it was that
day when Edna stood knocking at the door. It had been yellow then and it
was yellow now; it had been void of shade-trees then and it was so now,
if we except the horse-chestnut which grew near the gate, and which
could throw no shadow, however small, upon the house or in the great,
glaring rooms inside.

Uncle Phil did not like trees, and he did like light, and held it a sin
to shut out Heaven’s sunshine; so there never was a blind upon his
house; and the green-paper shades and curtains of Holland linen, which
somehow had been smuggled in and hung at a few of the windows, were
rolled up both day and night. Uncle Phil had no secrets to shut out, he
said, and folks were welcome to look in upon him at any time; so he sat
before the window, and washed before it, and shaved before it, and ate
before it, and dressed before it; and when his housekeeper, old Aunt
Becky, remonstrated with him, as she sometimes did, and told him “folks
would see him,” he answered her, “Let ’em peek, if they want to;” and so
the curtains remained as they were, and the old man had his way.

Many years ago, it was said that he had thought to bring a wife to the
farm-house, which he had brightened up a little, putting a red and green
carpet on the floor of the north room, painting the wood-work a light
blue, and covering the walls with a yellowish paper of most wonderful
design. Six chairs, and a looking-glass, and bureau, and table, had
completed the furnishing of that room, to which no bride ever came; and,
as Uncle Phil had been wholly reticent with regard to her, the story
came gradually to be regarded as a mere fabrication of somebody’s busy
brain; and Uncle Phil was set down as one whose heart had never been
reached by anything fairer than old black Becky, who had lived with him
for years, and grown to be so much like him that one had only to get the
serving-woman’s opinion to know what the master’s was. Just as that
stiff, cold north room had looked years ago, when made ready for the
mythical bride, so it looked now, and so, too, or nearly so, looked the
south room, with its Franklin fireplace, its painted floor, and the two
strips of rag carpet before the fire, its tall mantel-piece, with two
cupboards over it, holding a most promiscuous medley of articles, from a
paper of sage down to the almanacs for the last twenty years. Uncle Phil
didn’t believe in destroying books, and kept his almanacs as religiously
as he did his weekly paper, of which there were barrels full, stowed
away in the garret. Besides being the common sitting-room, the south
room was also Uncle Phil’s sleeping apartment, and in one corner was his
turned-up bed, with its curtain of copperplate, and beyond it the
clock-shelf and the clock, and a tall writing-desk, where Uncle Phil’s
valuables were kept. Two or three chairs, one on rockers, and one an
old-fashioned wooden chair with arms and a cushion in it, completed the
furniture, if we except the table, on which lay Walker’s Dictionary, and
the big Bible, and a book of sermons by some Unitarian divine, and Uncle
Phil’s glasses. The pleasantest room in the whole house was the kitchen,
where Aunt Becky reigned supreme, even Uncle Phil yielding to her here,
and never saying a word when she made and put down a respectable rag
carpet at the end of the long room in which she kept her Boston rocker
for company, and her little stuffed sewing chair for herself, and her
square stand covered with a towel, and on it a pretty cushion of blue,
which matched the string of robins’ eggs ornamenting the little glass
hanging beside the window, with its box for brush and combs made of
pasteboard and cones. This was Aunt Becky’s parlor, and her kitchen was
just as neat and inviting, with its nicely painted floor, and unpainted
wood-work, scoured every week, and kept free from dust and dirt by daily
wipes and dustings, and a continued warfare against the luckless flies
and insects, to whom Becky was a sworn foe. Out in the back room there
was a stove which Becky sometimes used, but she would not have it in her
kitchen; she liked the fireplace best, she said, and so in winter nights
you could see from afar the cheerful blaze of the logs Becky piled upon
the fire, giving the “forestick” now and then a thrust by way of
quickening the merry flames, which lit up her old black face as she
stooped upon the hearth to cook the evening meal.

And this was the house where Edna stood knocking for admission, and
wondering why her knock remained so long unanswered. Old Becky was at
the barn hunting for eggs with which to make her master’s favorite
custard pie, and never dreamed that she had a guest, until, with her
woollen dress pinned up around her waist, and a wisp of hay ornamenting
her hair, she returned to the house, and entering the kitchen by the
rear door, heard the knock, which by this time was loud and imperious.
No one but strangers ever came to the front door in winter, consequently
Aunt Becky, who had a good deal to do that morning, bristled at once,
and wondered “who was making that _to do_, and why they didn’t come to
the kitchen door, and not make her all that extra trouble.”

“Whale away,” she said, as Edna again applied herself vigorously to the
knocker. “I shan’t come till I’ve put up my _aigs_ and let my petticoats
down.”

This done, she started for the door, and, catching sight through the
window of Edna’s trunk, exclaimed:

“For Heaven’s sake, if thar ain’t a chist of clothes, a visitor; Miss
Maude, perhaps, and I nothin’ for dinner but a veal stew, or,—yes, I can
open a bottle of tomarterses, and roast some of them fall pippins.”

And with this consoling reflection, old Becky undid the iron bolt and
opened the door; but started back when, instead of the possible Miss
Maude, she saw a young girl dressed in black, “with just the sweetest,
sorriest, anxiousest face you even seen, and which made my bowels yearn
to oncet,” she said to Miss Maude, to whom she afterward related the
particulars of her first introduction to Edna.

“Does Mr. Philip Overton live here?” Edna asked so timidly that Becky,
who was slightly deaf, could only guess at what she said from catching
the name Overton.

“Yes, miss, he does; walk in, please,” and she involuntarily courtesied
politely to the young lady, who, save that she was shorter and smaller
every way, reminded her of her favorite Miss Maude. “You’ll have to come
right into my kitchen, I reckon; for when master’s out all day we never
has a fire in the south room till night,” she continued, as she led the
way through the “south room” into her pleasant quarters, which, in spite
of the preparations going on for dinner, looked home like and inviting,
especially the bright fire which blazed upon the hearth.

Edna went up to this at once and held her cold hands near the blaze, and
Becky, who was a close observer, noticed first the cut of her dress, and
then decided that “it had as long a tail as Miss Maude’s” (the reader
will bear in mind that this was before the days of short dresses), “but
was not quite as citified.” She noticed, too, the little, plump, white
hands which Edna held up to the fire, and said within herself,—

“Them hands has never done no work; I wonder who she can be?”

Edna told her after a moment that she had come from Chicago, from Mrs.
Dana’s, whom Becky might perhaps remember, as she was once an inmate for
a time of the farm-house. Becky did remember Miss Susan, and after
expressing her surprise and regret at her sudden death, she continued:

“You’ve come to visit yer uncle,—have you ever seen him?”

Edna had never seen him, and she had not exactly come visiting either.
In fact she hardly knew why she had come, and now that she was here, and
had a faint inkling of matters, she began to wish she had staid away,
and to wonder herself why she was there. To her uncle she intended to
tell everything, but not to Becky, though she instinctively felt that
the latter was a person of a great deal of consequence in her uncle’s
family, and must have some explanation, even though it was a very lame
one. So she said:

“I lived with Mrs. Dana when she died. I have lost all my friends. I
have no home, and so I came to Uncle Overton, hoping he would let me
stay till I find something to do. Mrs. Dana said he was kind and good.”

“Yes, but mighty curis in his ways,” was Becky’s rejoinder, as she
wondered how her master would receive this stranger, who had no home nor
friends unless he gave her both. “It’s jest as the fit catches him,” she
thought, as she asked Edna to lay aside her wrappings, and then told her
to make herself at home till the “marster came.” “He’s gone over to
Millville, six or eight miles or so, and rode old Bobtail, who never
trots faster than an ant can walk, so he won’t be home till three
o’clock, and I’m goin’ to have dinner and supper all to oncet, but if
you’re hungry, and I know you be, I’ll jest clap on a cold bite and
steep a drawin’ of tea,” she said.

But Edna was not hungry; she had breakfasted at the station not many
miles from Albany, and could wait until her uncle came.

“I’ll fetch yer things in, only I dunno whar marster’ll have ’em put.
Any ways, I’m safet in the back bedroom,” Becky continued, and with
Edna’s help, the trunk was brought into the house and carried up the
back stairs to a little room directly over the kitchen, where the bare
floor and the meagre furniture struck cold and chill to Edna’s heart, it
was so different from anything she had ever known.

That room at Aunt Jerry’s, looking out upon the graveyard, was a palace
compared to this cheerless apartment; and sitting down upon her trunk
after Becky left her, she cried from sheer homesickness, and half
resolved to take the next train back to—she did not know where. There
was no place for her anywhere, and in utter loneliness and despair she
continued to cry until Becky came up with a pitcher of warm water and
some towels across her arm. She saw that Edna was crying, and half
guessing the cause, said very kindly:

“I reckon you’re some homesick, and ’tain’t to be wondered at; this room
ain’t the chirkest in the house, and ’tain’t no ways likely you’ll stay
here, but I dassen’t put you in no other without marster’s orders; he’s
curis, and if he takes to you as he’s sure to do, you’re all right and
in clover right away. He sarves ’em all dis way, Miss Maude an’ all, but
now nothin’s too good for her.”

Edna did not ask who Miss Maude was, but she thanked Becky for her
kindness, and after bathing her face and eyes, and brushing her hair,
went down to the kitchen to wait with fear and trembling for the coming
of the “marster who was so curis in his ways.”

Becky did not talk much that morning. She had “too many irons in the
fire,” she said, and so she brought Edna a book which Miss Maude had
left there more than a year ago, and which might help to pass the time.
It was “Monte-Cristo,” which Edna had never read, and she received it
thankfully, and glancing at the fly-leaf saw written there, “Maude
Somerton, New York, May 10th, 18——”

Becky’s Miss Maude, then, was Maude Somerton, who lived in New York, and
whom some wind of fortune had blown to Rocky Point, where she seemed to
be an immense favorite; so much Edna inferred, and then she sat herself
down to the book, and in following the golden fortunes of the hero she
forgot the lapse of time until the clock struck two, and Becky, taking a
blazing firebrand from the hearth, carried it into the south room, with
the evident intention of kindling a fire.

“Marster always has one thar nights,” she said, “and when we has company
we sets the table thar. His bed ain’t no ’count, turned up with the
curtain afore it.”

And so in honor of Edna the table was laid in the south room, and Aunt
Becky, who had quietly been studying the young girl, and making up her
mind with regard to her, ventured upon the extravagance of one of her
finest cloths, and the best white dishes instead of the blue set, and
put on napkins and the silver-plated forks and butter-knife, and thought
how nicely her table looked, and wished aloud that “Marster Philip”
would come before her supper had all got cold.

As if in answer to her wish there was the sound of some one at the gate,
and looking from the window Aunt Becky joyfully announced that “marster
had come.”




                              CHAPTER XIX.
                              UNCLE PHIL.


Feeling intuitively that it would be better for Aunt Becky to announce
her presence, Edna made some excuse for stealing upstairs, where from
the window she had her first view of Uncle Phil, as he rode into the
yard and round to the barn on Bobtail’s back. He was a short, fat man,
arrayed in a home-made suit of gray, with his trouser legs tucked in his
boots, and his round, rosy face protected by lappets of sheepskin
attached to his cap and tied under his chin. Taken as a whole, there was
nothing very prepossessing in his appearance, and nothing especially
repellent either, but Edna felt herself shaking from head to foot as she
watched him dismounting from Bobtail, the old fat sorrel horse, who
rubbed his nose against his master’s arm as if there was perfect
sympathy between them. Edna saw this action, and saw Uncle Phil, as he
gently stroked his brute friend, to whom he seemed to be talking as he
led him into the barn.

“He is kind to his horse, anyway. Maybe he will be kind to me,” Edna
thought, and then she waited breathlessly until she heard the heavy
boots, first in the back room, then in the kitchen, and then in the
south room, where Becky was giving a few last touches to the table.

The chamber door was slightly ajar, and as Uncle Phil’s voice was loud,
Edna heard him distinctly, as he said:

“Hallo, Beck, what’s all this highfallutin for. What’s up? Who’s
come,—Maude?”

Becky’s reply was inaudible, but Uncle Phil’s rejoinder was distinct and
clear:

“Umph! A poor relation, hey? Where is she? Where have you put her?”

Becky was now in the kitchen, and Edna heard her say:

“In the back chamber, in course, till I know yer mind.”

“All right. Now hurry up your victuals and trot her out. I’m hungry as a
bear.”

After overhearing this scrap of conversation, it is not strange if Edna
shrank from being “trotted out,” but, obedient to Aunt Becky’s call, she
went downstairs and into the south room, where with his back to the
fire, and his short gray coat-skirts pulled up over his hands, stood
Uncle Phil. He did not look altogether delighted, and his little round
twinkling eyes were turned upon Edna with a curious rather than a
pleased expression as she came slowly in. But when she stood before him
and he saw her face distinctly, Edna could not help feeling that a
sudden change passed over him: his eyes put on a softer look, and his
whole face seemed suddenly to light up as he took her offered hand.

“Becky tells me you are my kin, grand-niece, or grandaunt, or
grandmother. I’ll be hanged if she made it out very clear. Maybe you can
explain what you are to me?”

He held her hand tightly in his own, and kept looking at her with an
earnest, searching gaze, before which Edna dropped her eyes, as she
replied:

“I can claim no nearer relationship than your grand-niece. My mother was
Lucy Fuller.”

“Who married the parson and died from starvation?” Uncle Phil rejoined.

And with a heightened color, Edna answered quickly:

“She married my father, sir, an Episcopal clergyman, and died when I was
a few days old.”

“Yes, yes, all the same,” Uncle Phil answered, good-humoredly. “I dare
say she was half-starved most of the time; ministers’ wives mostly are,
Episcopal ones especially. I take it you are of the Episcopal
persuasion, too?”

“I am.”

And Edna spoke up as promptly as if it were her mother she was
acknowledging.

“Yes, yes,” Uncle Phil said again; and here releasing Edna’s hand, which
he had been holding all the time, he took a huge pinch of snuff, and
then passed the box to Edna, who declined at once. “What, don’t snuff?
You miss a great deal of comfort. It’s good for digestion and
nervousness, snuff is. I’ve used it this thirty years; and you are an
Episcopalian, and proud of it, I see: jest so. I’ve no great reason to
like that sect, seeing about the only one I ever knew intimately turned
out a regular hornet, a lucifer match, the very old Harry himself;
didn’t adorn the profession; was death on Unitarians, and sent the whole
caboodle of us to perdition. She’ll be surprised to find me settin’ on
the banks of the river Jordan when she comes across, paddlin’ her own
canoe, for she _will_ paddle it, I warrant you. Nobody can help her.
Yes, yes. Such is life, take it as you find it. Maude is an Episcopal,
red-hot. I like her; maybe I’ll like you; can’t tell. Yes, yes; sit by
now, and have some victuals.”

During this conversation, Becky, who had put the dinner upon the table,
was standing in respectful silence, waiting until her master was ready,
and trembling for the fall of her light snowy crusts which she had made
for her pot-pie. But her fears were groundless; the dinner was a great
success, and Uncle Phil helped Edna bountifully, and insisted upon her
taking more gravy, and ordered Becky to bring a bottle of cider from the
cellar.

“Cider was ’most as good as snuff for digestion,” he said, as he poured
Edna a glass of the beverage, which sparkled and beaded like champagne.

On old Becky’s face there was a look of great satisfaction as she saw
her master’s attentions to the young lady, and as soon as her duties
were over at the table, she stole up the back stairs to the little
forlorn room where Edna’s trunk was standing,

“I know I kin ventur so much,” she said to herself as she lifted the
trunk and carried it into the next chamber, which had a pleasanter
lookout, and was more pretentious every way, than its small dark
neighbor.

This done Becky retired to the kitchen until dinner was over, and her
master, who was something of a gormandizer, was so gorged that three or
four pinches of snuff were requisite to aid his digestion; and then like
a stuffed anaconda he coiled himself up in his huge arm-chair and slept
soundly, while Becky cleared the table and put the room to rights.

The short wintry afternoon was drawing to a close by the time Uncle
Phil’s nap was over. He had slept heavily and snored loudly, and the
last snore awoke him. Starting up, he exclaimed:

“What’s that? Yes, yes; snored, did I? Shouldn’t wonder if I got into a
doze. Ho, you, Beck!”

His call was obeyed at once by the colored woman, who came and stood
deferentially before him.

“I say, Beck, I’m ’bout used up, what with eatin’ such an all-fired
dinner on top of jouncing along on Bobtail,—might as well ride a
Virginia fence and done with it. Can’t you do the chores? Bobtail is
fed, and the cows too.”

Becky signified her readiness to do anything her master liked, and after
bringing a tall tallow candle and adding a stick to the fire, she
departed, leaving Edna alone with Uncle Phil, who was wide-awake now,
and evidently disposed to talk.

“Now tell me all about it,” he said, suddenly facing toward Edna. “Tell
me who you are in black for, and what sent you here, and what you want,
and how you happened to know of me, when I never heard of you; but
first, what is your name? I’ll be hanged if I’ve thought to inquire.”

“Edna Louise Browning was my name until I was married.”

“Married! Thunder!” and springing from his chair, Uncle Phil took the
candle, and bringing it close to Edna’s face, scrutinized it closely.
“You married? Why, you’re nothing but a child. Married? Where was your
folks, to let you do such a silly thing? and where is he?”

“My husband is dead, was killed the very day we were married,—killed in
the cars,—and I have no folks, no home, no friends, unless you will be
one to me,” Edna replied, in a choking voice which finally broke down in
a storm of tears and sobs.

Uncle Phil did not like to see a woman cry, especially a young, pretty
woman like the one before him, but he did not know at all what to say:
so he took three pinches of snuff, one after the other, sneezing as many
times, blew his nose vigorously, and then going to the door which led
into the kitchen, called out:

“Ho, Beck! come here,—I want you.”

But Beck was watering old Bobtail, and did not hear him, so he returned
to his seat by the fire; and as Edna’s tears were dried by that time, he
asked her to go on and tell him her story. Edna had determined to keep
nothing back, and she commenced with the house by the graveyard, and the
aunt, who perhaps meant to be kind, but who did not understand children,
and made her life less happy than it might otherwise have been; then she
passed on to Canandaigua and Charlie Churchill; and while telling of him
and his friends, and where they lived, she thought once Uncle Phil was
asleep, he sat so still, with his eyes shut, and one fat leg crossed
over the other, and a pinch of snuff held tightly between his thumb and
finger. But he was not asleep, and when she mentioned Leighton Place, he
started up again and went out to Becky, who by this time was moving in
the kitchen.

“I say, Beck,” he whispered in her ear, as he gave his snuff-box a tap
with his finger, “move that gal’s band-box into the north-west chamber,
d’ye hear?”

Becky did not tell him that she had already done that, but simply
answered, “Yes, sar,” while he returned to Edna, who, wholly unconscious
of her promotion or the cause of it, continued her story, which, when
she came to the marriage and the accident, was interrupted again with
her tears, which fell in showers as she went over with the dreadful
scene, the gloomy night, the terrible storm, the capsized car, and
Charlie dead under the ruins. Uncle Phil too was excited, and walked the
room hurriedly, and took no end of snuff, and blew his nose like a
trumpet, but made no comment until she mentioned Mrs. Dana, when he
stopped walking, and said:

“Poor Sue, if she’d had a different name, I believe I’d kept her for my
own, though she wan’t over clever. Dead, you say, and left five young
ones, of course; the poorer they be the more they have. Poor little
brats. I’ll remember that. And John wanted to marry you? You did better
to come here; but where was that aunt, what d’ye call her? I don’t
remember as you told me her name.”

“Aunt Jerusha Pepper,” Edna said; whereupon something dropped from Uncle
Phil’s lip which sounded very much like “the devil!”

“What, sir?” Edna asked; and he replied:

“I was swearin’ a little. Such a name as that! Jerusha Pepper! No wonder
she was hard on you. Did you go back to her at all? and what did she
say?”

He took four pinches of snuff in rapid succession, and scattered it
about so profusely, that Edna received some in her face and moved a
little further from him, as she told him the particulars of her going
back to Aunt Jerusha, and what the result had been. She intended to
speak just as kindly and cautiously of Aunt Jerry as was possible; but
it seemed as if some influence she could not resist was urging her on,
and Uncle Phil was so much interested and drew her out so adroitly,
that, though she softened everything and omitted many things, the old
man got a pretty general impression of Aunt Jerusha Pepper, and guessed
just how desolate must be the life of any one who tried to live with
her.

“Yes, yes, I see,” he said, as Edna, frightened to think how much she
had told, tried to apologize for Aunt Jerry, and take back some things
she had said. “Yes, yes, never mind taking back. I can guess what kind
of a firebrand she is. Knew a woman once, as near like her as two peas;
might have been twins; pious, ain’t this peppercorn?”

Edna did not quite like Uncle Phil’s manner of speaking of her aunt, and
she began to defend her, saying she was in the main a very good woman,
who possessed many excellent qualities.

“Don’t doubt it in the least. Dare say she’s a saint; great on the creed
and the catechism. And she is your aunt? Ho, Beck, come here; or stop,
I’ll speak to you in the kitchen,” he said, as Becky came to the door.

The woman retreated to the kitchen fireplace, where Uncle Phil joined
her, speaking again in a whisper, and saying,—

“Look here, Beck. Take that girl’s work-bag, or whatever she brought her
things in, and carry it into the north chamber.”

“Maude’s room, sar!” Becky asked, with glistening eyes.

“Yes, Maude’s room,” Uncle Phil replied, and then went back to Edna, who
had but little more to tell, except of her resolve to come to him as the
only person in the world who was likely to take her in, or on whom she
had any claim of relationship.

“I don’t wish to be an incumbrance,” she said. “I want to earn my own
living, and at the same time be getting something with which to pay my
debts. Mr. Belknap, who brought me from the depot, thought I might get
up a select school, and if I do, maybe you will let me board here. I
should feel more at home with you than with strangers. Would you let me
stay if I could get a school?”

There certainly was something the matter with Uncle Phil’s eyes just
then.

“The pesky wind made them water,” he said, as he wiped them on his
coat-sleeves and then looked down at the girl, who had taken a stool at
his feet, and was looking anxiously into his face, as she asked if she
might stay.

“Let me be, can’t you. I’ve got a bad cold. I’ve got to go out,” he
said; and rising precipitately he rushed into the kitchen, and again
summoning old Becky, began with, “I say, Beck, make a fire in the north
chamber, a good rousing one too. It’s cold as fury; and fetch down a
rose blanket from the garret, and warm the bed with the warming-pan; the
sheets must be damp; and make some cream-toast in the morning; all
cream,—girls mostly take to that, and stew some _crambries_ to-morrow,
and kill a hen.”

Having completed his list of orders Uncle Phil returned to Edna, while
Becky, who, in anticipation of some such _dénouement_ had already made a
fire in the north and best chamber in the house, went up and added fresh
fuel to the flames, which roared, and crackled, and diffused a genial
warmth through the room. Meanwhile Uncle Phil, without directly
answering Edna’s question as to whether she could stay there, said to
her:

“And it’s seven hundred dollars you owe, with interest: three to Mr.
Leighton, and four to that Peppery woman, and you expect by teaching to
earn enough to pay it, child; you never can do that, never. Schoolma’ams
don’t get great wages round here.”

“Then I’ll hire out as a servant, or go to work in the factory. I’m not
ashamed to do anything honorable, so that it gives me money with which
to pay the debt,” Edna said, and her brown eyes were almost black with
excitement, as she walked hastily across the floor to the window, where
she stood for a moment, struggling to keep back the hot tears, and
thinking she had made a great mistake in coming to a man like Uncle
Phil, who, having regaled himself with two pinches of snuff, said:

“Look here, girl. Come back to the fire and let’s have it out.”

Something in his voice gave Edna hope that after all he was not going to
desert her, and she came back, and stood with her hand on the iron
fireplace, and her eyes fixed on him, as he said:

“You spoke of Mr. Belknap. Did he inquire your name?”

“No, sir,” was the reply.

“Did anybody inquire your name down to the depot?”

“No, sir.”

“Has Beck asked it?”

“No, sir, but I think I told her.”

“Thunder you did. Why will women tell all they know, and more too; ten
chances though she didn’t understand, she’s so blunderin’. I’ll go and
see.”

And again Uncle Phil went into the kitchen, and while pretending to
drink from the gourd, casually said to the servant:

“Ho, Beck, what’s this girl’s name in t’other room; hanged if I want to
ask her.”

Becky thought a moment and then replied: “don’t jestly remember, though
I b’lieve she told me; but I was so flustified when she came. Spects,
though, it’s Overton, seein’ she’s yer kin.”

“Yes, yes, certainly;” and Uncle Phil went back to the south room with a
very satisfied look upon his face. “See here, miss,” he began. “Your
name is _Overton_,—LOUISE OVERTON. Do you understand?”

Edna looked at him too much surprised to speak, and he continued:

“You are my niece, _Miss Overton_, _Louise Overton_, not Browning, nor
Churchill, nor Pepper-pod, nor Edna, but Louise Overton. And so I shall
introduce you to the folks in Rocky Point.”

Edna saw that he meant her to take another name than her own, and she
rebelled against it at once.

“My name is not Overton,” she said, but he interrupted her with—

“It’s _Louise_ though, according to your own statement, Edna Louise.”

“I admit that, but it is not Overton, and it would be wrong for me to
take that name, and lose my identity.”

“The very thing I want you to do,” said Uncle Phil, “and here are my
reasons, or a part of them. I like you, for various things. One, you
seem to have some vim, grit, spunk, and want to pay your debts; then, I
like you because you have had such a hard time with that Pepper woman. I
don’t blame you for running away; upon my soul I don’t. Some marry to
get rid of a body, and some don’t marry and so get rid of ’em that way.
You did the first, and got your husband’s neck broke, and got into debt
yourself, and seas of trouble. And you are my great niece. And Lucy
Fuller was your mother, and Louise Overton was your grandmother, and my
twin sister. Do you hear that, my twin sister, that I loved as I did my
life, and you must have been named for her, and there’s a look like her
in your face, all the time, and that hair which you’ve got up under a
net, but which I know by the kinks is curly as a nigger’s, is hers all
over again, color and all, and just now when you walked to the window in
a kind of huff, I could have sworn it was my sister come back again from
the grave where we buried her more than thirty years ago. Yes, you are a
second Louise. I’m an old man of sixty, and never was married, and never
shall be, and when Susan was here years ago, I thought of adopting her,
but I’ll be hanged if there was snap enough to her, and then she took
the first chap that offered, and married Dana, and that ended her. There
wasn’t a great many of us, and for what I know you are all the kin I
have, and I fancy you more than any young girl I’ve seen, unless its
Maude, and she’s no kin, which makes a difference. I’ve a mind to adopt
you, to give you my name, Overton, and if you do well I’ll remember you
in my will. Mind, I don’t propose to pay your debts. I want to see you
scratch round and do it yourself, but I’ll give you a home and help you
get scholars, or if you can’t do anything at that, help you get a place
in the factory at Millville, or in somebody’s kitchen as you mentioned.”

Uncle Phil’s eyes twinkled a little as he said this last, and looked to
see what effect it had on Edna. But she never winced or showed the
slightest emotion, and he continued:

“Nobody knows that you are a Browning, or a Churchill, or a widow, and
it’s better they shouldn’t. I saw the account of that smash-up in the
newspaper, but never guessed the girl was Louise’s grandchild. Folks
round here read it too; the papers were full of it. Charlie Churchill
hunted up in my woods one season; he’s pretty well known hereabouts.”

“Charlie, my Charlie, my husband; was he ever here, and did you know
him?” Edna asked, vehemently, and Uncle Phil replied:

“Yes, I knew him when he was a boy, though he couldn’t be much more than
that when you run off with him. His brother owns the hotel in town. We
are on different roads, but ain’t neither of us such a very great ways
from Albany, you know.”

Instantly Edna’s countenance fell.

“Roy Leighton own the hotel! then he will be coming here, and I don’t
want to see him till he is paid,” she said, in some dismay, and Uncle
Phil replied:

“He don’t often bother himself to come to Rocky Point. Never was here
more than two or three times. His agent does the business for him, and
that agent is _me_. He was here once, and I believe his mother was up
the mountain at a kind of hotel where city folks sometimes stay and make
b’lieve they like it. But this Charlie stayed in town at the tavern, and
folks——”

Here Uncle Phil stopped abruptly, and Edna, after waiting a moment for
him to proceed, said:

“Folks did not fancy Charlie. He was not popular. Is that what you want
to say? If it is, don’t be afraid to say it. I have borne much harder
things than that,” and there came a sad, sorry look upon her face. She
was thinking of her lost faith in Charlie’s integrity, and Uncle Phil of
the scandalous stories there had been about the fast young man of
eighteen who had made love to the girls indiscriminately, from little
Marcia Belknap, the farmer’s daughter, to Miss Ruth Gardner, whose
father was the great man of Rocky Point, and whose influence would do
more to help or harm Edna than that of any other person in town. But
Uncle Phil could not tell Edna all this, so he merely replied, after a
little:

“No, he wan’t very popular, that’s a fact. Young men from the cities are
different, you know, and Charles was sowing his wild oats about those
days. He passed for rich, you see; called it _my hotel_, my tenants, and
all that, when it was his brother’s.”

A sound from Edna like a sob made Uncle Phil pause abruptly and mentally
curse himself for having said so much. The truth was he had never quite
forgiven Charlie for inveigling him into loaning fifty dollars with
promises of payment as soon as he could get a draft from home. The draft
never came, but Roy did, and settled his brother’s bills and took him
away while Uncle Phil was absent, and as Charlie made no mention of his
indebtedness in that direction, the debt remained uncancelled. Several
times Uncle Phil had been on the point of writing to Roy about it, but
had neglected to do so, thinking to wait until he came to Rocky Point
again, when he would speak to him about it. But after the news of
Charlie’s tragical death was received, he abandoned the idea altogether:

“Fifty dollars would not break him,” he thought, and it was not worth
while to trouble Roy Leighton any more by letting him know just what a
scamp his brother was. So he tore up Charlie’s note and threw it into
the fire, and took a great deal of snuff that day, and stayed till it
was pitch dark at the hotel where they were discussing the accident, and
commenting upon poor Charlie, whose virtues now were named before his
faults. Mention was made of him in the minister’s sermon the next
Sunday, and it was observed that Miss Ruth Gardner cried softly under
her veil, and that pretty Marcia Belknap looked a little pale, and after
that the excitement gradually died away, and people ceased to talk of
Charlie Churchill and his unfortunate end. But they would do so again,
and the whole town would be alive with wonder if it once were known that
the young girl in black at Uncle Phil Overton’s was Charlie Churchill’s
widow. Ruth Gardner’s pale-gray eyes would scan her coldly and harshly,
while even Marcia Belknap would, perhaps, draw back from one who all
unknowingly had been her rival. This Uncle Phil foresaw, and hence his
proposition that Edna should bear his name and drop that of Churchill,
which was pretty sure to betray her. And after a time he persuaded her
to do it.

“You are already Louise,” he said, as Edna questioned the right in the
matter. “And inasmuch as I adopt you for my daughter, it is right and
proper that you take my name, is it not?”

“Perhaps so,” Edna replied faintly; “but I shall have to tell Aunt
Jerry, and Mr. Heyford too. I promised him I would write as soon as I
was located in business.”

To this, Uncle Phil did not object, provided Jack Heyford kept his own
counsel, as Edna was sure he would. With regard to Miss Pepper, he made
no remonstrance. He did not seem to fear _her_, but surprised Edna with
the question,

“What sort of a looking craft is this Pepper woman?”

Edna, who felt that she might have told too much that was prejudicial to
her aunt, gladly seized the opportunity to make amends by praising her
personal appearance.

“Aunt Jerry dresses so queerly that one can hardly tell how she does
look,” she said, “but if she only wore clothes like other people, I
think she’d be real handsome for her age. She was pretty once, I’m sure,
for she has a nice, fair complexion now, and her neck and arms are
plumper and whiter than a Mrs. Fosbook’s, whom I saw barenecked and
short-sleeved at a sociable in Canandaigua. Her hair is soft and wavy,
and she has so much of it, too, but will twist it into such a hard knot
always, when she might make such a lovely waterfall.”

“Do you mean those things that hang down your back like a work-bag?”
Uncle Phil asked, laughing louder and longer than Edna thought the
occasion warranted, especially as he did not know Miss Pepper, and how
out of place a waterfall would be upon her.

“What of her eyes?” he asked, and Edna replied—“bright and black as jet
beads.”

“And snap like a snap-dragon, I’ll bet,” Uncle Phil rejoined, adding,
after a moment, “I’d really like to see this kinswoman of yours. Tell
her so when you write, and say she’s welcome to bed and board whenever
she chooses to come, and there’s an Episcopal meeting-house over to
Millville, and she can have old Bobtail every saint’s day in the
calendar.”

There was a perfect shower of snuff after this, and then Uncle Phil
questioned Edna as to what she thought she could teach, and how much she
expected to get for each scholar; then he summoned Becky and ordered
cider, and apples, and fried cakes, and butternuts, and made Edna try
them all, and told her about her grandmother Louise when she was a girl,
and then, precisely as the clock pointed to nine, called Becky again,
and bade her show _Miss Overton_ to her room.

“I breakfast sharp at half-past seven,” he said to Edna; “but if you
feel inclined, lie as long as you please, though I can’t say but I’d
like to see a fresh young face across the table. Maude generally was
up.”

“I shall be up too,” Edna said, as she stood a moment in the door
looking at her uncle; then, as she remembered all the kindness he had
shown to her, there came over her with a rush the hunger she had always
felt for something missed in childhood, and without stopping to think,
she walked boldly up to the little man, and said, “Uncle Phil, nobody
ever kissed me good-night since I can remember; none of my relatives I
mean; will you do so?”

Uncle Phil was confounded. It was more than thirty years since he had
kissed anybody, and he began to gather up his short coat skirts and
hop,—first on one foot, then on the other, and look behind him toward
the door in a kind of helpless way, as if meditating flight But Edna
stood her ground, and put up her full, red lips so temptingly, that with
a hurried “bless me, girl, bless me, I don’t know ’bout this. Yes, yes,
I feel very queer and curis,” Uncle Phil submitted, and suffered Edna’s
kiss, and as her lips touched his, he clasped both arms about her neck,
and kissed her back heartily, while with a trembling voice, he said,
“Heaven bless you, my child, my daughter, Louise Overton. I’m a rough
old fellow, but I’ll do my duty to you.”

There was a tear on Edna’s cheek, left there by Uncle Phil, and Edna
accepted it as the baptism for her new name, and felt more resigned to
“Louise Overton,” as she followed Becky upstairs to the north room,
where the bright fire was making shadows on the wall, and diffusing a
delightful feeling of warmth throughout the apartment




                              CHAPTER XX.
                         UP IN THE NORTH ROOM.


“Oh, how pleasant and nice. Am I to sleep here?” Edna asked, as she
skipped across the floor, and knelt upon the hearth-rug in front of the
fire. “What’s become of that little room? I thought——”

She did not say what she thought, for Becky interrupted her with:

“Oh, dat’s no ’count room; jes’ put folks in thar when they fust comes,
then moves ’em up higher, like they does in Scripter. Marster’s mighty
quare.”

“How long have you lived with him?” Edna asked, and Becky replied:

“Oh, many years. I was a slave on the block, in Car’lina, and Marster
Phil comed in and seen me, and pitied me like, and bid me off, and kep’
me from gwine South with a trader, an’ brought me home and sot me free,
and I’ve lived with him ever since, an’, please Heaven, I will sarve him
till I die, for all he’s done for me. Is you gwine to stay, Miss
Overton?”

Edna told her that she was, and that she was sure she should like it
very much if she could get something to do.

“You likes to work then, and so did Miss Maude, though she ’pears more
of a lady than ’nough I’ve seen what wouldn’t lift thar finger to fotch
a thing,” Becky said, and Edna asked:

“Who is Maude? Uncle Phil has spoken of her once or twice.”

“Why she’s Maude Somerton, from New York,” Becky replied; “and she came
fust to Prospect Cottage, as they call a house way up on the hills whar
the city gentry sometimes stay summers for a spell, and whar Miss
Maude’s Aunt Burton was onct with her daughter called Georgie, though
she was a girl.”

Edna was interested now, and moved a little nearer to Becky, who
continued:

“I know precious little ’bout them Burtons, only they was mighty big
feelin’, and Miss Maude was a kind of poor relation, I s’pects;
leastwise she wanted to teach school, and Uncle Phil was committee-man
and let her have it, and she was to board round, and didn’t like it, and
went at Marster Phil till he took her in, though he hated to like pison,
and it was allus a mystery to me how she did it, for he don’t hanker
after wimmen much, and never could bar to have ’em ’round.”

Here Aunt Becky paused a moment, and taking advantage of the pause, we
will present our readers with a picture which Aunt Becky did not see,
else she would have known just how Maude Somerton persuaded Uncle Philip
to let her have a home beneath his roof. The time, five o’clock or
thereabouts, on a warm summer afternoon: the place, a strip of meadow
land on Uncle Phil’s premises: the _Dramatis Personæ_, Uncle Phil and
Maude Somerton: She, with the duties of the day over, wending her way
slowly toward the small and rather uncomfortable gable-roofed house up
the mountain-road, where it was her fate to board for that week, aye,
for two or three weeks, judging by the number of children, who seldom
left her alone for a moment, and who each night contended for the honor
of sleeping with the “school marm.” He, industriously raking up into
mounds the fragrant hay, and casting now and then a wistful glance at a
bank of clouds which threatened rain; when suddenly, across the field,
and bearing swiftly down upon him, came an airy form, her blue linen
dress held just high enough to clear the grass, and at the same time
show her pretty boots, with the Broadway stamp upon them, and her dainty
white petticoat, whose tucks and ruffles were the envy of all the girls
in Rocky Point, and the bane of the wash-woman’s life. Uncle Phil saw
the apparition, and saw the tucks and ruffles, and thought what pretty
feet Miss Somerton had, and what tall boots she wore, and wondered why
she was coming toward him in such hot haste.

“Most likely some of those Beals’ boys have been raisin’ Cain, and so
she comes to me as committee-man. I’ll be blamed if I don’t throw up the
office, for I can’t have wimmen taggin’ after me this way,” he thought,
and pretending not to see the young girl, now so near to him, he kept on
with his raking, until right before his very face came the vision of
blue and white, and a little, fat, dimpled hand was laid upon his rake,
and a pair of soft, blue eyes looked up into his with something like
tears in them, while a pleading voice told him how terrible it was to
board round, to eat the best cake every day, to be company all the time,
and never feel at home; besides, having from one to three children
fighting to sleep with you every night, when you wanted so much to be
alone. And then, still grasping the rake, Maude asked if she might stay
altogether at his house, where everything was so nice, and cool, and
quiet, and she could have a room to herself, undisturbed by children.

“You will, I know you will, Mr. Overton,” and she stopped for his reply.

Uncle Phil was more astounded than when asked by Edna to kiss her. Of
his own accord, he would quite as soon have taken a young alligator into
his family as a _girl_, a _woman_; but there was something about this
one standing there before him, and now actually grasping his hand
instead of the rake, which completely unmanned him. Those eyes, and the
touch of the white fingers clinging so closely to his own, could not be
resisted, and with a quick, nervous motion, he began to step backwards,
and sideways, and then forwards, ejaculating meanwhile, “Lord bless
me,—yes, yes! I feel very queer; yes I do. Let go my rake. This is
sudden. Yes, yes. You don’t like sleepin’ with all the young ones in the
deestrict. Don’t blame you. I’d as soon sleep with a nest of woodchucks.
Yes, yes. This is curis. I must have some snuff.”

He got his hand free from Maude, took two or three good pinches of his
favorite Macaboy, offered her some, and then, giving a hitch to his
suspender, replied to her question, repeated, “May I stay with you, Mr.
Overton?”

“Yes, yes; I s’pose you’ll have to, if Beck is willin’. I’ll see her
to-night, and let you know.”

He said this last by way of giving himself a chance to draw back, for
already he began to repent, and feel how terrible it would be to have a
young woman in his house all the time,—to-day, to-morrow, and next day.
It was a great deal worse than sleeping with every child in town, and he
brought up Beck as the pack-horse who was to carry the burden of his
refusal on the morrow. But Maude outwitted him there.

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” she cried. “You are the dearest man in the
world. Becky is all right. I saw her first, and she said if you were
willing, she was. I shall move this very day, for I cannot stay with
Mrs. Higgins another hour. Thank you again, ever so much, you dear,
darling man.”

She was tripping off across the fields, leaving the enemy totally routed
and vanquished, and sick at his stomach, and dizzy-headed, as he tried
to think how many more weeks there were before vacation.

“Nine, _ten_, TWELVE!” he fairly groaned. “I can’t stand it. I won’t
stand it. I’ll put a stop to it,—see if I don’t. Yes, yes; to have them
boots trottin’ up and down the stairs, and them petticoats whiskin’
through the doors, and makin’ me feel so curis. I’ll go crazy,—I feel
like it now.”

He tried snuff,—six pinches; but that didn’t answer. Then he tried
raking hay so fast, that to use his own words, “he sweat like a
butcher;” then he tried cooling his feet in the brook near by, and
wiping them on his bandanna; but nothing was of avail to drive away
“that curis feelin’ at the pit of his stomach,” and long before sunset
he left his work, and wended his way homeward.

The enemy was there before him, or, at least, a part of her equipments,
for two of the Higgins’ boys had brought over Maude’s satchel, and
sun-umbrella, and water-proof, and two or three books, and a pair of
overshoes; all of which were on the kitchen-table, while the boys were
swinging on the gate in the front yard.

Uncle Phil ordered the boys home, and “the traps” up in the little “back
chamber.”

“That’ll start her. She’ll find that worse than sleepin’ with the
Higginses,” he thought, as he gave the order, and then went and took a
dose of something he called “jallup.” “He had an awful headache,” he
said to Aunt Becky, when she inquired what was the matter; and his
headache increased, and sent him to bed before Maude arrived, flushed,
delighted, and full of spirits that her boarding ’round was over.

He heard her go up to her little hot back room, and wondered how she
liked it, and how long she’d stay in it, and half wished he had nailed
the window down so she could not open it.

She was up bright and early the next morning, and drove the cows to
their pasture, a distance of half a mile, and brought back a bunch of
flowers, which she arranged upon the table; and she looked so fresh and
pretty in her blue gown, which just matched her eyes, and ate cold beans
so heartily, that Uncle Phil began to relent, and that night she slept
in the _north-west_ room instead of the little back one. There she
stayed a week; and then, after having helped Uncle Phil rake up his hay
one day when a shower was coming up, she was promoted to the _north_,
and best chamber, and some nice striped matting was bought for the
floor, and a pretty chestnut set took the place of the high-post
bedstead and old-fashioned bureau; and some curtains were hung at the
windows, for Uncle Phil said “he didn’t want the whole town to see the
_girl_ undress, if they did him.”

And here for weeks Maude reigned, a very queen, and cheered and
brightened up the old farm-house until, when in the fall she left and
went back to Oakwood, Aunt Becky cried for sheer loneliness, and Uncle
Phil took a larger dose of “jallup” to help the feeling at his stomach,
than when she first came to him.

And this was how Maude Somerton chanced to be an inmate of Uncle Phil’s
family, and enshrined in his heart, as well as in old Becky’s, as a kind
of divinity, whom it was not so very wrong to worship.

“’Pears like we never could get over hankerin after her,” Becky said to
Edna, “she was so chirk and pert-like, and made the house so different.”

Edna was longing to ask another question, but did not quite know how to
get at it. At last she said:

“Does Miss Somerton live in New York all the time? Has her Aunt Burton
no country residence?”

“Yes, bless you, a house as big as four of this, down to Oakwood, whar
thar’s looking-glasses as long as you be, Miss Maude said, and furniture
all covered with satin.”

Edna was no nearer her point than before, and so she tried again.

“Have they any neighbors at Oakwood, any families they are intimate
with?”

“Yes, thar’s the Leightons, to my way of thinkin’ quite as sot up as the
Burtons, and thar place, Miss Maude say, is handsomer and bigger than
the one to Oakwood.”

“Oh, indeed, Mrs. Leighton must be a happy woman. Did you ever see her?”
Edna asked, and Becky replied,

“Thar ain’t no Miss Leighton; she’s Miss Churchill, married twicet; her
oldest boy, Mr. Roy, owns the property, and is the nicest man I reckon
you ever seen. He stayed to the hotel oncet a few weeks, and I done his
washin’, ’case he couldn’t find nobody handy, and Marster Phil let me do
it and keep the pay. He wore a clean shirt a day, and cuffs and collars,
and white vests, and pocket handkerchiefs, and socks without end; and
gave me seventy-five cents a dozen just as they run, which made me a
nice handful of money.”

“Yes,” Edna said, musingly; “I suppose he must be very rich? Is he the
only child?”

“Ne-oo,” and Aunt Becky spoke a little scornfully, while Edna moved so
as to hide her burning face.

She had reached the point at last, and her heart beat almost audibly as
Aunt Becky continued:

“Or he wasn’t the only child when they was here. Thar was a younger one,
a Charles Churchill, who got killed on the railroad a spell ago. You
should speak well of the dead, and I mean to; but I reckon he wasn’t of
so much ’count in these yer parts as Master Roy.”

“Did he do anything bad,” Edna asked, and her voice was very low and
sad.

“No, not bad, only wan’t of much ’count. He druv fast horses, and smoked
all the time, and bragged about his money when he hadn’t a cent, and
flirted with the girls awfully. Thar’s Miss Ruth Gardner, all of three
years older than him, thought she should catch him sure, and little
Marcia Belknap was fairly bewitched; and both on ’em cried when they
heard he was dead, though he left a wife, the papers said, married that
very day.”

“Oh, dreadful,” and Edna groaned aloud, for she saw again that awful
scene, and the white, still face upturned to the angry sky, and it
seemed wrong to sit there and make no sign while Becky went on.

“I hain’t seen Miss Maude since, so I don’t know nothin’ about his wife,
who she was, nor whar she is. Down to the Leighton Place, maybe, though
it’s been surmised that she warn’t much,—kind of poor white folksy, I
reckon; and if that’s so, Miss Churchill ain’t a-goin’ to own her, ’case
she’s mighty big feelin’, and turned up her nose at Miss Ruth, and took
her boy home to git shet of her. But Miss Ruth is enough for her, and
I’ve hearn she talked awful about that wife of Charlie’s, and said she
jest wished she could see her long enough to tell her she had the best
and fustest right to her husband. Oh, she’s a clipper, Miss Ruth is.”

Edna’s hands were locked firmly together, and the nails were making red
marks upon her flesh, while she longed for Aunt Becky to leave her. She
had heard enough, and she looked so white and tired, that Becky noticed
it at last, and asked if she was sick.

“No, only tired,” she said; and then Becky said good-night, and left her
alone with her sad thoughts, which, however, were not all sad and
bitter.

She had lost her first love in more ways than one, and as, with her head
bent down, she sat thinking of him and all she had heard, she felt a
fresh pang of remorse cut through her heart at her own callousness in
feeling that perhaps for herself it was better that Charlie died. But
only for herself. When she thought of _him_, and what he might have
been, had space for repentance been granted him, her tears flowed like
rain, and, prone upon her face, she prayed that if the prayers of the
living for the dead could avail, hers might be heard and answered for
her lost, wayward Charlie.




                              CHAPTER XXI.
                             MISS OVERTON.


To the young and healthy sleep comes easily, and notwithstanding her
excitement, Edna slept soundly in her new home; and when the first signs
of daylight began to be visible in her room, and she heard sounds of
life below, she arose with a feeling nearer akin to happiness than she
had known since Charlie died. Aunt Becky soon appeared, chiding her for
getting up before her fire was made, and finally coaxing her back to
bed, while she kindled a blazing fire upon the hearth, and then brought
a pitcher of hot water for her young lady’s ablutions. Breakfast would
be ready in half an hour, she said, as she left the room; and then Edna
rose again, and remembering what Uncle Phil had said about her
grandmother’s hair, and inferring therefrom that he liked curls, she
brushed and arranged her own thick tresses in masses of wavy curls, and
then went down to Uncle Phil, who, after bidding her good-morning, said,
softly, as he held his hand on her flowing hair:

“Wear it so always; it makes me think of my sister.”

“I am going to town,” he said, when breakfast was over, “to see what I
can do towards scarin’ up a school, though I haint a great deal of
confidence; but if I fail, there’s still the factory to Millville, and
the hired-girl business, you know.”

He gave Edna a knowing wink, offered her a pinch of snuff, told her “to
keep a stiff upper lip,” and then rode off on old Bobtail to Rocky
Point.

Long before noon everybody in town knew that the young lady in black was
Miss Louise Overton, Uncle Phil’s niece, who wanted a school, and could
teach music and drawing and everything, and Miss Ruth Gardner’s name was
actually down as a pupil in drawing, while Squire Gardner headed the
list with his two youngest children. It was a stroke of policy on Uncle
Phil’s part to get the Gardners interested, especially Miss Ruth, whose
name as a pupil in drawing was the direct means of gaining several more,
so that when at noon Uncle Phil went home to dinner, it was settled that
a select school should be opened at once in one of the rooms of the old
Academy, Uncle Phil pledging himself to see that it was thoroughly
cleaned and put in order, besides supplying the necessary fuel. Twenty
scholars were promised sure, and Uncle Phil rode home in great spirits,
and gave Bobtail an extra amount of hay, and then went in to Edna, to
whom he said:

“I dunno ’bout the school, but there’s a place you can have at Squire
Gardner’s as second girl, to wait on the door and table, and pass things
on a little silver platter; wages, two dollars a week and found. Will
you take it?”

“Certainly, if nothing better offers. I told you I would do anything to
earn money,” Edna replied, whereupon Uncle Phil called her a “brick,”
and said:

“He’d like to see her waiting on Ruth Gardner, yes he would,” and took a
pinch of snuff, and told her the exact truth, and that Miss Ruth was to
call on her that afternoon and see some of her drawings, and talk it
over with her.

Miss Ruth, who was very proud and exclusive, was at first disposed to
patronize “Miss Overton,” whose personal appearance she mentally
criticised, deciding that she was very young and rather pretty, or would
be if she had a little more style. Style was a kind of mania with Ruth,
who, being rather plain, said frankly, that “as she could not be
handsome, she _would_ be stylish, which was next best to beauty;” and so
she studied fashion and went to the extreme of everything, and
astonished the Rocky Pointers with something new every month, and
carried matters with a high hand, and queened it over all the young
people, whom she alternately noticed and snubbed, and did more to help
Edna by being a pupil herself than any six other young ladies could have
done. She liked Edna from the first, and being of a romantic turn of
mind, she liked her the more because she fancied her to be suffering
from some other cause than the mere loss of friends. “A love affair,
most likely,” she thought; and as one who knew how to sympathize in such
matters, she took a great interest in her young teacher, and, after a
time, grew confidential, and in speaking of marriage, said with a sigh
and a downcast look in her gray eyes, that “her first and only love was
dead, that the details of his death were too dreadful to narrate, and
had made so strong an impression upon her that it was not at all
probable she should ever marry now.”

And Edna listened with burning cheeks, and bent her head lower over the
drawing she was making from memory of a bit of landscape seen from Aunt
Jerry’s upper windows. Edna stood somewhat in awe of Miss Ruth with her
dash and style, and flights of fancy, but from the moment little Marcia
Belknap called and looked at her with her great, dreamy eyes, and spoke
with her sweet low voice, she was the young girl’s sworn friend, and
when the two grew so intimate that Marcia, who was also given to
sentiment and fancies, and had a _penchant_ for blighted hopes and
broken hearts, told her teacher one night, just as Ruth had done, of
_her_ dead love, Edna caressed her bowed head and longed to tell her how
foolish she was, and how the lost fruit, if gathered, would have proved
but an apple of Sodom.

“Charlie was not worthy of so much love,” was the sad refrain ever
repeating itself in her heart, until at last the old soreness began to
give way, and she felt that the blow which had severed his life from
hers had also set her free from a load she would have found hard to bear
as the years went on, and she saw more and more the terrible mistake she
had made.

The school was a great success, thanks to Uncle Phil, who worked like a
hero to get her scholars, and who carried her each day to and from the
old academy, while Becky vied with him in caring for and petting her
young mistress. And Edna was very happy. Her school, including her
pupils in drawing, was bringing her in over one hundred and fifty
dollars a quarter, and as she had no outgoing expenses she was
confidently expecting to lessen her debt to Roy in the spring, besides
sending Aunt Jerry a draft which should surprise her.

As soon as her prospects were certain she wrote her aunt a long letter,
full of Rocky Point and Uncle Phil, whose invitation for Aunt Jerry to
visit him she gave word for word.

“I have no idea she’ll come,” Edna said to herself as she folded up the
letter, “but maybe she will feel better for the invitation.”

And Aunt Jerry did, though the expression of her face was a study for an
instant as, by her lone evening fire, with only Tabby for company, she
read her niece’s letter. She did not exactly swear as Uncle Phil had
done, when he first heard _her_ name and knew that Edna was her niece,
but she involuntarily apostrophized the same personage, addressing him
by another name.

“The very old Harry!” she exclaimed, and a perceptible pallor crept into
her face, as, snuffing her tallow dip, she commenced again to see if she
had read aright.

Yes, there it was in black and white. Philip Overton was Edna’s great
uncle, to whom in her distress she had gone, and he had taken her as his
daughter, and given her his name, and sent a friendly message to her,
Jerusha Pepper, asking her to visit him, and couching his invitation in
language so characteristic of the man that it made the spinster bristle
a little with resentment. She sent more than a quart of milk that night
to the minister’s wife, whose girl, as usual, came for it, and wondered
with her mistress to find her pail so full; and next day at the sewing
society she gave five yards of cotton cloth to be made into little
garments for the poor children of the parish, and that night she wrote
to Edna, telling her, “she was glad to know she was so well provided
for, and hoped she would behave herself, and keep the right side of her
uncle, and not go to the Unitarian meeting if she had any regard for
what her sponsors in baptism promised for her, let alone what she took
on herself the time she renewed the promise. The Orthodox persuasion was
a little better, though that was far enough from right; and if she
couldn’t be carried over to Millville, and it wasn’t likely Mr. Overton
was one to cart folks to church, she’d better stay at home and read her
prayer-book by herself and one of Ryle’s sermons. She would send the
book as a Christmas gift.” The letter closed with, “Thank your uncle for
inviting me to his house, but tell him I prefer my own bed and board to
anybody’s else. I’ve toughed it out these thirty years, and guess I can
stand it a spell longer.”

Uncle Phil brought the letter to Edna, and when she had finished reading
it, asked:

“What does the Pepper-corn say? or maybe you wouldn’t mind letting me
see for myself. I own to a good deal of curiosity about this woman.”

Edna hesitated a moment, and then reflecting that the letter was quite a
soft, friendly epistle for Aunt Jerry to write, gave it to Uncle Phil,
who, putting on his glasses, read it through carefully till he came to
the part concerning the proper way for Edna to spend her Sundays. Then
he laughed aloud and said, more to himself than Edna, as it would seem:

“Yes, yes, plucky as ever. Death on the Unitarian church to the end of
her spine; Orthodox most as bad; Ryle and the prayer-book; good for
her.”

Then, when he reached the reply to his invitation to visit him, he
laughed so long and loud, and took such quantities of snuff, that Edna
looked at him with a half fear lest he had suddenly gone mad. But he had
not, and he handed the letter back, saying as he did so:

“Tough old knot, isn’t she?”

Edna made no reply, for something in his manner made her sorry that she
had shown him Aunt Jerry’s letter, and she resolved never to do so
again. She had written to Jack Heyford, telling him of her new name and
prospects, and her proximity to Charlie’s friends, and Jack had replied
in a long, kind, brotherly letter, in which he told her that Georgie was
at present with him, but he did not know how long she would stay.

“Annie is better,” he wrote, “but we fear will never be able to walk
again without the aid of crutches. She talks of you a great deal, and
wonders where you are. I have not told her, for I thought it better not
to do so while Georgie is here, as I fancy your uncle has some reason
for not wishing the Leightons to know where you are at present. I am
thinking of changing my quarters from Chicago to Jersey City, where I
have a chance in an Insurance Company, but nothing is decided yet. Will
let you know as soon as it is, and perhaps run up for a few days to
Rocky Point, as there is something I wish to say to you, which I would
rather not put on paper. I was there once with Roy Leighton some years
ago; his mother was at the Mountain House, and Georgie was there too.
Strange how matters get mixed up, is it not?”

Jack signed himself “yours truly,” but something in the tone of his
letter made Edna’s heart beat unpleasantly, as she guessed what it was
Jack Heyford had to say to her, which he would rather not commit to
paper, and thought of the disappointment in store for him.

There was no Christmas tree at Rocky Point that winter. The Unitarians
thought of having one, but gave it up on account of the vast amount of
labor which must necessarily fall upon a few, and contented themselves
with a ball, while the Orthodox portion of the community, who did not
believe in dancing, got up a sleigh-ride to Millville, with a hot supper
at the hotel, followed by a game of blind man’s buff, in which Marcia
Belknap bruised her nose until it bled, and had the back breadth of her
dress torn entirely from the waist, in her frantic endeavors to escape
from Uncle Phil.

For Uncle Phil, though a Unitarian to his very marrow, cast in his lot
for once with the other side, and hired a fancy team, and went to the
sleigh-ride, and took Edna with him, and astonished the young people
with his fun and wonderful feats of agility.

But, if there was no Christmas _tree_ at Rocky Point, Santa Claus came
to the old farm-house, and deposited various packages for “Miss
Overton.” There was a pretty little muff, and the box which contained it
had “Chicago” marked upon it; and Edna felt a keen pang of regret as she
thought how much self-denial this present must have cost the generous
Jack, and how poorly she could repay it. Another package from Aunt
Jerry, contained the promised book of sermons, and a pair of lamb’s-wool
stockings—“knit every stitch by myself and shaped to my own legs,” Aunt
Jerry wrote; adding, in reference to a small square box which the
package also contained: “The jimcracks in the box, which to my mind are
more fitting for a South Sea Islander than a widow, who has been
confirmed, was sent to me by Roy Leighton, who deigned to say they was
for his sister, Mrs. Charles Churchill,—a Christmas gift from himself;
and he wanted me to give them to you, if I knew where you was, as he
supposed of course I did by this time; and asked me to give him your
address. Maybe you’ll think I did wrong, but I just wrote to him that
I’d got the toggery, and would see that you had it,—that you was taking
care of yourself, and earning money to pay your debts, and inasmuch as
you did not write to him, it was fair to suppose that you wanted to stay
_incog._, and I should let you. You can write to him yourself, if you
wish to.”

The box when opened was found to contain a full set of beautiful
jets,—bracelets, ear-rings, pin, chain, and all,—with a note from Roy,
who called Edna “My dear little sister,” and asked her to accept the
ornaments as a Christmas gift from her “brother Roy.” There was a warm,
happy spot in Edna’s heart for the remainder of that day, and more than
once she found herself repeating the words, “my dear little sister.”
They were constantly in her mind, both at home and on the way to
Millville, when the sleigh-bells seemed to chant them, and the soft
wind, which told of rain not far away, whispered them in her ears, as it
brushed her hair in passing. But as her heart grew warmer with the
memory of those words written by Roy Leighton, so the little hands
clasped together inside Jack Heyford’s muff, grew colder and colder, as
she wished he had not sent it, and thought of the _something_ he was to
say when he came to Rocky Point.




                             CHAPTER XXII.
                             MAUDE’S VISIT.


Two weeks after the ride to Millville, Uncle Phil received a letter from
Maude, who said that as it was vacation with her now, she was coming for
a few days to the farm-house. “So, dear Mr. Overton,” she wrote, “give
Bobtail an extra supply of oats, for if it chances to be sleighing, I
mean to make you into a gay cavalier, a second Sir Launcelot, of whom
all the Guinevres and Elaines of Astolat shall be jealous, as we go
driving through the country. Tell dear Aunt Becky to get out her warming
pan, and hold her fattest chicken in readiness. She knows my taste. Aunt
Burton has sent for me to the parlor, so, dear, darling Mr. Overton, _au
revoir_ till next Thursday night. I can scarcely wait for thinking of
that _north_ room with the wood fire on the hearth, and Becky waiting
upon me as if I were a queen instead of a poor Yankee school-mistress.
Yours, forever, Maude.”

Uncle Phil read this letter three times to himself, and then three times
to Becky, who was almost as much excited as her master. Edna, on the
contrary, thought of Maude’s visit with dread. She had no wish at
present to be recognized by any friend of the Leightons. The Miss
Overton _rôle_ suited her now that she had become accustomed to it, and
began to see that it was for the best. Sometime she meant to see Roy
Leighton and his mother, and if she could do so without their knowing
who she was, it would add greatly to the interest and excitement of the
meeting; but if Maude should discover her secret, her pretty project
would be spoiled. Still, the more she reflected upon it, the more she
saw how improbable it was that Maude should suspect her of being other
than Miss Overton, and her unwillingness to meet Miss Somerton gradually
gave way until, at last, she was almost as anxious as Becky herself for
the arrival of their guest, who came a train earlier than she was
expected, and took them by surprise.

Edna walked home from school that day, and seeing no one as she entered
the house, went directly to her chamber, where Maude was sitting in her
blue flannel dressing-gown, with her bright, beautiful hair rippling
over her shoulders, and the brush lying forgotten on the floor, as she
sat gazing into the fire upon the hearth. As Edna entered unannounced,
she started to her feet, and shedding back her luxuriant tresses,
exclaimed with a merry laugh:

“Oh, you must be Miss Overton, I know; my rival in Becky’s heart, and
Mr. Overton’s too; but you see I am not to be vanquished, and have come
right back into my old quarters, trusting to your generosity to divide
with me the towels and the hooks for my dresses. Let me help you,
please. You look tired.”

And she walked up to Edna, who was vainly trying to undo her
water-proof. At sight of Maude, who had known Charlie so well, there had
swept over Edna a faint, dizzy feeling, which made her for a moment very
pale and weak; then the hot blood came surging back to her cheeks, which
were bright as carnations by the time the troublesome knot had been
untied by Maude Somerton’s skilful fingers.

“What a little dot of a girl you are,” Maude said, when at last Edna was
disrobed and stood before the fire.

“And you are so much taller than I had supposed,” Edna replied, looking
up into the sunny blue eyes, which were regarding her so intently.

“Yes; I must seem a perfect amazon to one as _petite_ as yourself. I
used to want to stop growing, and once actually thought of tying a stone
to my head, as Charlie Churchill teasingly suggested.”

Edna felt a great heart throb at the mention of that name, but made no
reply, and Maude continued:

“I suppose it is time now to dress for dinner. Becky tells me that on
‘Miss Louise’s’ account, they dine after your school hours, by which I
see that your position with Uncle Phil is in all respects ‘_comme il
fait_,’ but you must have commenced on the lower round. Did you try the
little back chamber?” and Maude’s eyes brimmed with mischief as she
asked the question.

“Yes, and nearly froze for half an hour or so. Were you put in there,
too?”

“Yes, and nearly melted. Of course you were promoted to the north-west
room next.”

Edna, who knew nothing of the gradation by which she had reached her
present comfortable apartment, pleaded _not guilty_ to the north-west
room, whereat Maude professed to feeling terribly aggrieved at the
partiality shown.

“It must be because you are a _little dot_,” she said; “and because—,”
she hesitated a moment, and then added, softly, “because of your deep
mourning and trouble. That always opens one’s heart. Mr. Overton told me
all about you.”

Maude’s face was turned away from Edna, and so she did not see the
violent start, as Edna asked:

“What did he tell you about me?”

“Oh, nothing improper,” and Maude put a part of her front hair in her
mouth, while she twisted her back locks into a massive coil. “He said
you had lost your father and mother, and that made me feel for you at
once, for I am an orphan, too; he said, also, that since their death,
you had had a hard time generally, and was obliged to teach school,
every item of which will apply to me. I am a poor schoolma’am,—which, in
New York society, don’t pass for much; and if Uncle Burton should close
his doors upon me, I should have nowhere to lay my head, and so you see
we ought to be friends. I wish you would hold that lock of hair, please;
it bothers me to get the last new kink. Can you do it?”

She looked up suddenly at Edna, who was curiously studying this girl,
who mixed things so indiscriminately, poverty, orphanage,
friendlessness, and the last style of dressing the hair.

“I don’t try. I curl my hair, and that is all. I don’t know a thing
about fashion,” she said, while Maude, who had succeeded in winding her
satin braids, coil after coil, about her head, until the last one came
almost to her forehead, replied, “Your curls are lovely. I would not
meddle with them. Fashion is an exacting dame, but Aunt Burton and
Georgie make such a fuss if I do not try to be decent.”

“Who is Georgie?” Edna asked, feeling guilty for the deception she was
practising.

“Georgie is Aunt Burton’s adopted daughter and niece, while I am Uncle
Burton’s relation, which makes a vast difference,” Maude replied. “She
is a belle and a beauty, and an heiress, while I, as I told you, am
poor, and a schoolma’am, and nobody but ‘that young girl who lives with
Mrs. Burton.’”

Edna had made no attempt at arranging her own toilet, but completely
fascinated with her visitor, stood leaning on the bureau, watching the
young girl who rattled on so fast, and who, while pleading poverty,
arrayed herself in a soft, flowing dress of shining blue silk, which
harmonized so admirably with her fair, creamy complexion.

“One of Georgie’s cast-offs,” she explained to Edna. “Most of my
wardrobe comes to me that way. I am fortunate in one respect; fortunate
in everything, perhaps, for everybody is kind to me. Look, please, at my
beautiful Christmas present, the very thing of all others which I
coveted, but never expected to have.”

She took from the little box on the bureau a gold watch and chain, and
passed it to Edna, who held it in her hand, and with a face as pale as
ashes, turned to the window as if to see it better, while only the most
superhuman effort at control on her part kept her from crying outright,
for there lying in her hand, with the old familiar ticking sounding in
her ear, was _her watch_, the one Charlie had given to her, and which
she had left in Albany. There could be no mistake. She knew it was the
very same, and through it she seemed again to grasp the dead hand of her
husband, just as she had grasped it that awful night when he lay beneath
the wreck, with the rain falling on his lifeless face. Edna felt as if
she should faint, and was glad of Maude’s absorption in a box of collars
and bows, as that gave her a little time in which to recover herself.
When she felt that she could speak, she laid the watch back upon the
bureau, carefully, tenderly, as if it had been the dead body of a
friend, and said:

“It is a charming Christmas gift. Your aunt’s, I suppose?”

She knew she ran the risk of seeming inquisitive by the last remark, but
she wanted so much to know how that watch of all others came into Maude
Somerton’s possession.

“No, you don’t catch her making me as costly a present as that. She
selected it, but Roy Leighton paid for it.”

“Roy Leighton!” Edna exclaimed, her voice so strongly indicative of
surprise, that Maude stopped short and glanced quickly at her, saying,
“what makes you say ‘Roy Leighton’ in that tragic kind of way? Do you
know him?”

The wintry light had nearly faded from the room by this time, and under
cover of the gathering darkness, Edna forced down the emotion which had
made every nerve quiver, and managed to answer indifferently:

“I have heard Uncle Phil speak of him. He owns the hotel here in town, I
believe. He must be a very dear friend to make you so costly a present.”

Edna could not define the nature of the pang which had shot through her
heart when she heard that to Roy Leighton Maude owed the watch she had
once called hers, and surrendered with so many tears. It certainly was
not jealousy, for why should she be jealous of one who had never evinced
any interest in her save such as was expressed in the ornaments of jet,
and the words “My dear little sister.” Edna did not know how closely
those four words had brought Roy Leighton to her until she saw his
costly gift to another.

“That’s just what I told Aunt Burton that people would say,” Maude
replied; “and I expect Georgie will be highly scandalized, for she it is
who expects to be Mrs. Roy Leighton, some day, and not poor, humble I.
Mr. Leighton’s half-brother, Charlie, was killed the very day he was
married. Perhaps you saw it in the paper. It was a dreadful thing. I’ll
tell you all about it sometime. I was with poor Mrs. Churchill a few
days, and Roy, who had a broken leg, and could not sit up, greatly
overrated my services, and resolved to make me a present. He had heard
me say once or twice that I wanted a watch which was a watch, instead of
the great big masculine thing of Uncle Burton’s, and so he concluded to
give me one, and asked Aunt Burton, who was going up to Albany, to pick
it out. I suppose I should be deceiving you if I did not tell you that
the watch was second-hand, and the jeweller sold it a little less
because he bought it of a lady who had seen better days. Auntie had
admired it very much before he told her that, and she took it just the
same. I was perfectly delighted, of course, though I have built all
sorts of castles with regard to its first owner, _who_ she was and how
she looked, and I’ve even found myself pitying her for the misfortune
which compelled her to part with that watch.”

Maude’s toilet was finished by this time, and as Uncle Phil’s voice was
heard in the south room below, she asked if they should not go down.

“Yes, you go, please. Don’t wait for me, I have my hair to brush yet,”
Edna said, feeling that she must be alone for a few moments, and give
vent to the emotion she had so long been trying to repress.

She opened the door for Maude to pass out, and stood listening till she
heard her talking to Uncle Phil; then with a sob she crouched upon the
hearth and wept bitterly. Maude’s presence had brought back all the
dreadful past, and even seemed for a time to have resuscitated her
girlish love for Charlie, while in her heart there was a fierce
hungering for Charlie’s friends, for recognition by them, or at least
recognition by Roy, who had called her his “dear little sister.” It was
the memory of these words which quieted Edna at last. He had had her in
his mind when he sent the jet, and perhaps he would think of her again,
and sometime she might see him and know just how good he was; and as
Becky called to say supper was waiting, she hastily bathed her face, and
giving a few brushes to her hair, went down to the room where Maude,
full of life and spirits, was chatting gayly with Uncle Phil, and
showing him the watch which Roy Leighton had given her.

As Edna came in, Uncle Phil glanced anxiously at her, detecting at once
the traces of agitation upon her face, and as Maude suddenly remembered
leaving her pocket-handkerchief upstairs, and darted away after it
before sitting down to the table, he improved her absence by saying,
softly:

“What is it, little _Lu_? Has Maude brought the past all back again?
Yes, yes, I was afraid she would.”

“Not that exactly,” Edna said, with a quivering lip and smothered sob;
“but, Uncle Phil, _that_ was _my_ watch once,—Charlie gave it to me,
and—and—I sold it, you remember, in Albany. I knew it in a moment.”

“Yes, yes. Lord bless my soul! things does work curis. Your watch, and
Roy Leighton bought it for Maude! there couldn’t a likelier person have
it, but that don’t help its hurting. Poor little Lu! don’t fret; I’ll
buy you one, handsomer than that, when I sell my wool. You bet I will.
Yes, yes.”

He took a large pinch of snuff, and adroitly threw some of it in Edna’s
eyes, so that their redness, and the tears streaming from them, were
accounted for to Maude, who came tripping in, all anxiety to know what
was the matter with “_Little Dot_,—that’s what I call her, she is so
very small,” she said to Uncle Phil, as she took her seat at the table,
talking all the time,—now of her school, now of Aunt Burton, and Georgie
who was in Chicago, and at last of Charlie Churchill’s tragical death,
and the effect it had on his mother.

When she reached this point Uncle Phil tried to stop her, but Maude was
not to be repressed. Uncle Phil knew Charlie, and of course he must be
interested to hear the particulars of his death. And she told them, as
she had heard them from Georgie, and said she pitied the poor girl for
whom nobody seemed to care,—unless it was Roy, who was lame at the time
and could do nothing for any one. And Edna heard it all, with an agony
in her heart which threatened to betray itself every moment, until Maude
spoke of “the poor young wife, for whom nobody seemed to care but Roy.”
Then there came a revulsion; the terrible throbbing ceased; her pulse
became more even, and though she was paler than usual, she seemed
perfectly natural, and her voice was firm and steady as she said, “Then
the wife did not come to Leighton?”

“Lord bless me! That is curis,” Uncle Phil muttered to himself, as,
having finished his dinner, he walked hastily to the window, while
Maude, without heeding him, replied:

“No, and I was so sorry. I had her room ready for her, too,—Charlie’s
old room, because I thought she would like it best. You see, Mrs.
Churchill was sick, and I had it all my own way, except as I consulted
Roy, who evinced a good deal of interest, and I think was really
disappointed that Edna did not come. That was her name,—Edna,—and I
think it pretty, too, because it is not common.”

Supper was over by this time; and the conversation concerning Charlie
Churchill was not resumed until the two girls had said good-night to
Uncle Phil, and were alone in their room. Their acquaintance had
progressed rapidly, and, girl-like, they sat down before the fire for a
good long talk before going to bed. Passing her fingers through Edna’s
flowing curls, Maude made some remark about Georgie’s hair, and then
added, “Georgie said Edna had handsome curls. Poor thing! I wonder where
she is.”

“Don’t they know?” Edna asked, feeling that she must say something.

“No; they only know that she is somewhere working to pay the debt she
fancies she owes to Roy.”

“I almost wonder Roy told anybody about that; seems to me he should have
kept it to himself,” Edna said, feeling a little hurt that her affairs
should be so generally known to strangers.

“Roy didn’t tell of it,” Maude replied. “Mrs. Churchill told it first to
auntie, and then to Georgie. She tells them everything, and against
Roy’s wishes, too, I am sure; for he is not a gossip. Roy Leighton is
splendid everyway,—the best man I ever knew.”

Edna looked up at her with a peculiar smile, which Maude readily
understood; and, shaking her head, she said:

“No; I am not in love with him. I would as soon think of aspiring to the
moon; but I admire him greatly, and so does every one. He is very
different from Charlie, with whom I used to flirt a little.”

Edna would rather hear about Roy than Charlie; and so she asked:

“Do you think he cares anything about his sister-in-law?”

“Of course he does. He wrote her a letter to Chicago; but she had left
before it reached there; and once, in speaking of her to Georgie, he
called her ‘a brave little woman;’ and, if you believe me, I think
Georgie didn’t quite like it.”

There were little throbs of joy quivering all along through Edna’s
veins, and softly to herself she repeated: “Brave little woman,” trying
to imagine how Roy looked when he said that of her, and how his voice
sounded. She did not care for Georgie Burton’s liking or disliking what
Roy said. She did not care even if Georgie became his wife, as Maude
said she probably would. If he only gave her a place in his heart as his
sister, and esteemed her “a brave little woman,” she was more than
content; and in Edna’s eyes there was a brightness not borrowed from the
fire-light, as, long after Maude was in bed, she sat upon the hearth,
combing her curls, and thinking of Roy Leighton, who had called her “a
brave little woman,” and acknowledged her as his sister.

Maude’s visit did Edna a world of good, for it brought her glimpses of a
life widely different from any she had known, and stirred her up to
higher aims, by inspiring her with a desire to make herself something of
which Roy should not be ashamed, if ever she chanced to meet him. And
she should meet him sometime, she was sure of that; and Maude would be
the medium, perhaps; for, if necessary, she would tell her everything,
knowing she could trust her as her own sister. They grew to liking each
other very much during the few days Maude stayed at the farm-house; and
Edna roused herself from a certain morbid listlessness into which she
had fallen, with regard to herself and her personal appearance, thinking
it did not matter how she looked or what she wore, as black was black
anyway. But Maude did not think so.

“Needn’t look like a Guy, if you do wear black,” she said.

And so she coaxed Edna into white collars and cuffs, and, spying the
jet, made her put it on, and screamed with delight when she saw how it
brightened her up, and relieved the sombreness of her attire.

“If you were a widow, you could not go into deeper mourning than you
have,” she said, as she was trying the effect of arranging Edna’s curls
a little more fashionably, and twisting in a bit of lavender ribbon
taken from her own box.

“Oh, no, not that,” Edna cried, as she looked at herself in the glass,
and thought of the driving rain, the terrible wreck, and the white,
drenched face beneath.

But Maude, who knew nothing of this as connected with Edna, insisted
upon the ribbon just for that evening, and managed to have Uncle Phil
praise the effect, and say he liked bright, pretty things, and wished
Edna would wear ribbons and jet all the time.

The next day was Sunday; and Maude suggested that Uncle Phil should
drive herself and Edna over to St. Jude’s, at Millville.

“Dot tells me she has never been there, and I think it’s a shame,” she
said.

“Yes, yes; maybe ’tis; but she never came right out as you do, rough
shod, on a feller. She reads her prayer-book at home, and adorns her
profession that way. Yes, yes; you want to go to the _true_ church,”
Uncle Phil said, adding that he “didn’t think no great things of that
persuasion, or leastwise never had till he knew Louise and Maude. They
were the right stripe, if they were ’Piscopals; and maybe for once he’d
go to the doin’s; but they mustn’t expect him to jine in the
performance, nor bob his head down when he went in, nor keep jumping up
like a dancing-jack. He should jest snuggle down in the pew, and sleep
it out,” he said.

Maude gave him full permission to do as he liked, and, just as the bell
of St. Jude’s was pealing forth its last summons, old Bobtail drew up in
front of the church, and deposited his load upon the steps. Whether it
was from a wish to surprise his young ladies, or because of the
softening influence around him, Uncle Phil did not lounge or sleep in
one corner of the pew, but, greatly to Edna’s astonishment, took a
prayer-book from the rack in front, and followed the service tolerably
well for a stranger. Only in the Creed he was silent, and in the fourth
response to the Litany; “The _Trinity_ part,” he “couldn’t go;” and he
took a pinch of snuff on the sly, and glanced furtively at the two young
maidens kneeling so devoutly at his side.

“They act kinder as if they did mean it, and were not puttin’ on, and
thinkin’ of their neighbors’ bunnets,” he thought, as he listened to the
services, which he decided were “confoundedly long, and a very trifle
tedious.”

It was many a year since Uncle Phil had heard our church service; and
something in its singular beauty and fitness impressed him as he never
was impressed before. All those kneeling people around him were _not_
“putting on.” Some of them surely were earnest and sincere, and were
actually talking to somebody who heard, and whose presence even he could
almost feel, as he sat listening to the sermon, which was from the text,
“For he loveth our nation, and hath builded us a synagogue.” The sermon
was a plain, straightforward one; and, as the clergyman took the ground,
as an inducement for good works, that the building of a synagogue was
the direct means of commending the centurion to the Saviour’s notice,
Uncle Phil, who believed more in works than in faith, began to prick up
his ears, and to wonder if he hadn’t better do something which would be
put to his credit in Heaven’s great book of record.

“I can’t snivel, and say I’m sorry when I ain’t, but I should like to
have a balance sheet in my favor, when I get on t’other side,” he
thought; and then he began to wonder if “it wouldn’t please the _gals_,
and the Lord, too,” if he was to build a chapel at Rocky Point.

If that synagogue had really been a help to the centurion, and led the
Saviour to deal mercifully with him, what might not the building of a
chapel do for Uncle Phil? He did not believe in the divinity of Christ;
but he had a warm feeling in his heart for the _man_ who had lived on
earth thirty-three years, and known all the sorrows which could be
crowded into a human life. He believed, too, in heaven, and, in a kind
of mystical half way, he believed in hell, or in purgatory, at least,
and deemed it well enough, if there was a route which led away from that
place, to take it. That chapel might be the very gate to the road of
safety; and when, during the last prayer, he put his head down with the
rest, his thoughts were on a little knoll, half way between his house
and the village proper, and he was wondering how much lumber it would
take, and if Carson would cheat his eye-teeth out if he gave him the
job.

As from little streams mighty torrents sometimes flow, so from that
Sunday at St. Jude’s sprang the beautiful little Gothic structure, whose
spire you may see just behind a clump of trees, as you whirl along in
the cars through the mountain passes between Albany and Pittsfield. “St.
Philip’s,” they call it, though the old man who planned it, and paid for
it, and _run_ it, as the people said, would have liked it better if
“they had called it _St. Maude_ or _St. Louise_, he didn’t care which.”
Both girls were perfect in his estimation, though for a time he gave the
preference to Maude, as having been the first who had torn the thick
coating away from his heart, and made it vibrate with a human interest.
He liked Maude wonderfully well, and when, on the Monday following the
ride to St. Jude’s, she said good-by to them all, and went back to her
school on the Hudson, he stole out behind the smoke-house, and, after
several powerful sneezes, wiped his eyes suspiciously upon his butternut
coat-sleeve, and wondered to himself “why the plague he wanted to be a
snivelin’ when he didn’t care shucks for the neatest woman in the land.”

Uncle Phil was terribly out of sorts that day, and called poor Beck a
_nigger_, and yelled furiously at some boys who were riding down hill on
his premises, and swore at Bobtail because he didn’t trot faster on his
way from the depot, and forgot all about the chapel, and was generally
uncomfortable and disagreeable, till Edna came from school, and he found
her waiting for him in the south room, with the ribbon in her hair, just
as he had said he liked to see it, and the jet brightening her up, and
making her a very pretty picture to contemplate, as she came forward to
meet him. Hearing from Becky how forlorn he was, she put aside her own
longing for the girl, who had brought so much sunshine with her, and
made herself so agreeable to her uncle, that the frown between his eyes
gave way at last, or rather she kissed it away, telling him she knew why
it was there, and did not like to see it, and was going to be just as
much like Maude as it was possible to be.

“Bless my soul, a gal’s lips feel mighty curis on such a tough old
rhinoceros hide as mine,” he said; but he caught the little hands which
were smoothing his hair, and held them in his own, and talked of his
dead sister, whom Edna was like, and of the old days at home when he was
young; and then the conversation drifted to Aunt Jerusha and Roy
Leighton, and the payments Edna hoped to make them both in the spring
when her first quarter was ended.

She would have one hundred and fifty dollars, she said, and fifty should
go to Roy, and one hundred to her aunt; and she drew a comical picture
of that dame when the money was received, proving that her niece’s
promise had been no idle thing.

“And you don’t mean to keep a cent for yourself, Dot?” Uncle Phil asked,
adopting the name Maude had given to his niece, and which suited her so
well.

“No, not a cent till my debts are paid. I’ve clothes enough to last
until that time, I guess, if I am careful. At all events I shall buy
nothing unnecessary, I assure you,” Edna said; and then Uncle Phil fell
into a fit of musing, and thought how for every dollar Edna paid to
Jerusha Pepper and Roy, he would put a corresponding dollar in the
Millville Savings Bank to the credit of Louise Overton, who might one
day find herself quite a rich little woman.




                             CHAPTER XXIII.
                             PAYING DEBTS.


Early in April, Aunt Jerry received a letter from Edna containing a
draft for one hundred dollars. “All honestly earned,” Edna wrote; “and
affording me more pleasure to pay it than you can well imagine. I have
fifty dollars beside, which I enclose in an envelope, and wish you to
send to Mr. Leighton; but don’t tell him where I am, for the world.”

Aunt Jerry was not in the best of spirits when she received the letter.
She had been having a cistern dug under her back stoop, and what with
hurrying Robbins, who dug it, and watching her clock to see that he
worked his hours, she had worried herself almost sick; while to crown
all, the poor old man, who at her instigation had spent nearly one
entire day in wheeling the dirt to a safe distance from the house, where
it wouldn’t “stand round in a great ugly pile,” found on sinking his
hogshead that he had dug his excavation too large, and would need all,
or nearly all, the dirt to fill it up again; and greatly to the horror
of the highly incensed Miss Pepper, he spent another day in wheeling his
dirt back again. It was of no use for Miss Jerusha to scold, and call
the man a fool. She had ordered the dirt away herself, and now she
listened in a half-frantic condition to the slow tramp, tramp of
Robbins’ feet, and the rattling sound of the wheelbarrow which brought
it back again, and undid the work of yesterday.

“Shiffless as the rot,” was Aunt Jerry’s parting comment, spoken to
herself, as, the cistern finally finished, Robbins departed, just as a
boy brought her Edna’s letter.

The sight of the money mollified her a little, and for a long time she
sat thinking, with her pasteboard sun-bonnet on her head, and Tabby in
her lap. At last, her thoughts found vent in words, and she
anathematized Roy Leighton, and called him “a stingy hunks if he touched
a dollar of that child’s hard earnings. Don’t catch me to do it, though
I dare say _he_ thinks I will!” and Aunt Jerry gave a contemptuous sniff
at the mysterious _he_, whoever he might be.

The next day she went to Canandaigua, and got a new bank-book, with
“Edna Browning’s” name in it, and put to her credit two hundred dollars,
and then at night wrote to her niece, telling her “she had done better
than she ever ’sposed she would, and that if she kept on she might in
time make a woman, perhaps.”

Not a word, however, did she say with regard to her disposition of the
funds: that was a surprise for the future; but after finishing her
letter, she caught up a half sheet of paper, in a fierce kind of way,
and wrote hurriedly:


“PHILIP OVERTON:—I dare say you think me as mean as _pussley_, and that
I kept that money Edna sent for my own, but I assure you, sir, I didn’t.
I put every dollar in the bank for _her_, and added another hundred
besides.

                                “Yours to command,      JERUSHA PEPPER.”

“P.S.—I hope, from some things Edna tells me, you are thinking about
your depraved state, while out of the ark of safety.

                                                                  J. P.”


Edna never saw this letter, for Uncle Phil did not think it best to show
it to her; but he read it many times with infinite satisfaction, and
took a pinch of snuff each time he read it, and chuckled over it
amazingly, and said to himself:

“There’s now and then a good streak about the old gal. Maybe she gets it
from the Church,—the ark she calls it. Anyhow, I’ll speak to Carson
to-day about the plan. I couldn’t please three wimmen folks better.”

He answered the letter at once, and said:


“MISS JERUSHA PEPPER:—Well done, good and faithful servant. Many
daughters have done well, but you excel them all. Three cheers and a
tiger for you.

“P.S.—I ain’t thinkin’ particularly about my depraved condition, but I
_am_ thinkin’ of building a chapel for you to enjoy religion in, when
you come to visit Edna.

                                                       “PHILIP OVERTON.”


Uncle Phil _did_ see Carson, as he proposed doing; and as a result of
the conference, a delegation of the leading men in the Unitarian Church
called upon him the next morning, to know if it was true that he had
abjured their faith, and was going to be confirmed at St. Jude’s, and
build a church in Rocky Point, and pay the minister himself. They had
heard all this, and a great deal more; and unwilling to lose so
profitable and prominent a member from their own numbers, they came to
expostulate and reason with him, and if necessary use harsher and
severer language,—which they did before they were through with him. For
Uncle Phil owned to the chapel arrangement, and said he thought it well
enough for a man of his years to be thinking about leaving behind him
some monument by which he should be remembered; otherwise, who would
think of the old codger, Phil Overton, three months after he was dead.

Then Squire Gardiner suggested that their own church needed repairing,
and that a new and handsome organ would be quite as fitting a monument,
and do quite as much toward wafting one to heaven as the building of an
Episcopal chapel, and introducing into their midst an entirely new
element, which would make fools of all the young people, and set the
girls to making crosses and working altar-cloths. For his part, he would
advise Mr. Overton to think twice, before committing himself to such
folly.

Uncle Phil replied that “he didn’t want any advice,—he knew his own
business; and as to repairing the church, he wouldn’t say but what he
would give as much toward that as anybody else; but he’d ‘be _darned_’
if he’d buy an organ for them to fight over, as to who should or
shouldn’t play it, and how much they should have a Sunday. A choir was a
confounded nuisance, anyway,—always in hot water, and he didn’t mean to
have any in his chapel. No, sir! he’d have _boys_, as they did over to
St. Jude’s.”

“Ha, a Ritualist, hey?” and one of the number drew back from him, as if
he had had the small-pox, asking how long since he had become a convert
to that faith, and when he met with a change?

Uncle Phil told him it was “none of his business;” and after a few more
earnest words, said, “the whole posse might go to thunder, and he would
build as many churches as he pleased, and run ’em _ritual_, if he wanted
to, for all of anybody.”

This was all the satisfaction the Unitarians got; while the Orthodox,
who, like their neighbors, rebelled against the introduction of the
Episcopal element into their midst, fared still worse, for the old man
_swore_ at _them_; and when one of them asked “how soon he intended to
be confirmed?” vowed “he would be the very first chance he got, so as to
spite ’em.”

Uncle Phil was hardly a fit candidate for confirmation, but the lion was
roused in him, and the chapel was now so sure a thing, that before the
first of June, the site was all marked out, and men engaged to do the
mason-work.

Edna’s school was still a success, and Edna herself was very happy in
her work and her home. She heard from Maude frequently, and the letters
were prized according to the amount of gossip they contained concerning
Leighton Place and its inmates. Roy had written a few lines
acknowledging the receipt of the fifty dollars, and asking her, as a
favor, not to think of paying him any more.


“I’d so much rather you would not,” he wrote; “I do not need the money,
and it pains me to think of my little sister working so hard, and
wearing out her young life, which should be happy, and free from care.
Don’t do it, Edna, please; and I so much wish you would let me know
where you are, so that I might come and see you, and sometime, perhaps,
bring you to Leighton, where your home ought to be. Write to me, won’t
you, and tell me more of yourself, and believe me always,

                                               “Your brother,      ROY.”


It was a very blithe, merry little girl which went singing about the
farm-house after the receipt of this letter, which came through the
medium of Aunt Jerusha; and Uncle Phil stopped more than once to look
after her, wondering to see her so different from what she had been when
she first came to Rocky Point. Then she was a sad, pale-faced woman,
with a dreary, pitiful expression in the brown eyes, which now sparkled
and danced, and changed their color with every passing emotion, while
her face glowed again with health and girlish beauty. All the
circumstances of her life at Rocky Point had been tending to this
result, but it was Roy’s letter which produced the culminating effect,
and took Edna back to her old self, the gay, light-hearted girl, who had
known no greater care than Aunt Jerry’s rasping manner. From this she
was free now, and life began to look as bright and beautiful to her as
did the hill-sides and the mountain-tops when decked in their fresh
spring robes.

She answered Roy’s letter at once, and told him how glad she was to know
that he had an interest in her, but that she must pay him every dollar
before she could feel perfectly free again, and that for the present she
preferred to remain where she was. In reply to this, Roy sent her a few
hurried lines saying that early in June he should sail for Europe with
his mother, whose health required a change. They might be gone a year or
more, and they might return at any time. It all depended on his mother,
and how the change agreed with her. Edna cried over this letter, and
when she knew that Roy had sailed, her face wore a sober, anxious look,
and she said often to herself the prayer for those upon the sea, and
watched eagerly for tidings of the arrival of the “Adriatic” across the
water. And when they came, and she knew Roy was safe, there was a kind
of jubilee within her heart, and she offered a prayer of thanksgiving to
Him who rules the winds and waves, and had suffered no harm to befall
her brother, Roy Leighton.




                             CHAPTER XXIV.
                           GEORGIE AND JACK.


Georgie staid in Chicago nearly two months, and for that sacrifice
mentally arrogated to herself the right to a martyr’s crown, if not to
be canonized as a saint. She had found Annie better than she expected,
and that of itself was in some sort a grievance, as it implied undue
anxiety, if not actual deception, on Jack’s part. In order to get her
there, he had represented Annie as worse than she was, Georgie thought;
and at first she was inclined to resent it, and made herself generally
disagreeable, to Jack and Aunt Luna, but not to Annie, whose arms closed
convulsively around her neck, and whose whole body quivered with emotion
when she first saw her sister, and knew she had really come. For two
days Georgie sat by her, continually gazing at her, and listening to her
prattle, until there came a softer look into her face, and her eyes lost
somewhat of their cold, haughty expression. Annie told her everything
she could think of about Mrs. Churchill, who had gone, no one knew
where, and about herself and her little joys, and griefs, and faults.
Everything bad which she had done was confessed, her impatience and
fretfulness, and the falsehoods she had told, and then with a faltering
voice Annie said:

“I have asked Jesus to forgive, and I most know He has, for I don’t feel
afraid of the dark any more, and I love to think He is here with me when
my back aches, and I lies awake nights and can’t sleep a bit. And will
you forgive me too, sister Georgie; and did you ever tells a lie, though
in course you never. You’s always so good. I wonder what makes me bad?
Do you know, sister Georgie?”

Oh, how abased and sinful Georgie felt while listening to this innocent
little child, whose garment she was not worthy to touch, but who had
exalted her so highly, and held her as something perfect. Perhaps she
might have solved the mystery which troubled Annie so much as to what
made her so given to the bad, when she wanted to be good. She might have
told of blood, so tainted with deceit that a single drop of it in one’s
veins would make the fountain impure. But she did not; she kissed and
comforted the child, and folding her arms about her said, with a gush of
real, womanly feeling:

“Oh, Annie, my darling, what would I give to be as innocent as you;
continue what you are; shun a lie or deceit of any kind as you would
shun the plague, and pray for me that I may be half as good as you.”

She lifted herself up, panting with emotion, while Annie looked
wonderingly at her.

“Why, sister Georgie,” she said. “You can’t be bad. You are the goodest
woman I know. I does pray for you that Jesus will take care of you, but
never that He’d make you good, because I thought you were.”

“No, child, I am not,—” and the proud Georgie sobbed aloud. “I’m not
good, but I love you. I want you to remember that, Annie, whatever may
happen; remember that I _do_ love you, oh my darling, my darling.”

There was some terrible pain tugging at Georgie’s heart,—some fierce
struggle going on, and for a few moments she cried aloud while Annie
looked wonderingly on and tried to comfort her. After that she never
gave way again, but was her old, assured self. Of the influences warring
within her the wrong one had prevailed, and she had chosen to return to
her formal life of ease rather than remain where her duty clearly lay,
and where the touch of a little child’s hand might have availed to lead
her away from the ruinous path she was treading.

Between herself and Jack there was a stormy interview one night after
Annie was asleep, and the brother and sister sat together before the
grate, talking first of the past and then of the future. Jack had
received, as he thought, an advantageous offer to go to Jersey City and
enter an insurance office. There was a house there for sale on very
reasonable terms, and Jack’s friend urged him to buy it, and have a home
of his own. How Jack’s heart beat at the thought of a home of his own,
with no constantly recurring rent-bill to pay, and no troublesome
landlord spying about for damages! A home of his own, which he could
improve and beautify as he pleased, with a sense of security and
ownership, and where, perhaps, Georgie might be induced to stay a
portion of the time. In Annie’s present helpless condition it was
desirable that she should not often be left alone, and as old Luna must
at times be out, it seemed necessary that a third person should form a
part of Jack’s household, and who more fitting and proper than Georgie,
provided she could be made to think so. Jack did not expect her to give
up Aunt Burton’s home, with its luxuries, altogether; only for a time he
wanted her, and he was revolving in his mind how to tell her so, when
she surprised him with the announcement that “she was going back to New
York in a few days; that she had already stayed longer than she intended
doing, especially after she found how well Annie was, and how little she
needed her except for company.”

Jack was astonished. He had fully expected Georgie to remain with him
until spring, and he told her so, and told her further of his plans for
the future, and his hope that she would be interested in his new home,
if he had one, and stay there a portion of the time. Georgie heard him
through, but there was an expression in her black eyes which boded ill
to the success of Jack’s plan, and her voice, when she spoke, had in it
a cold, metallic ring, which made Jack shiver, and involuntarily draw
nearer to the fire.

“_I_ bury myself in Jersey City! You must be crazy to propose such a
thing. Why, I’d rather emigrate to Lapland, out and out. I can’t endure
the place, and I don’t see why you want to go there. You are doing well
here, and these rooms are very comfortable.”

The fact was Georgie did not care to have Jack and Annie quite so near
to herself as they would be in Jersey City, and she quietly opposed the
plan, without however changing Jack’s opinion in the least.

“Are you not afraid that your return to New York will bring up old
times? There are those there still who have not forgotten,” she said,
and in her eyes there was a kind of scared look, as if they were gazing
on some horrid picture of the past.

“And suppose they do remember,” Jack said, a little hotly. “There’s
nothing in the past for which I need to blush; and surely no one could
possibly recognize in the heiress Georgie Burton, the——”

“Hush, Jack, I won’t hear what I was, even from your lips,” Georgie
said, fiercely. “Perhaps there _is_ no danger for myself; but I never
walk the streets even now, as the daughter of Ralph Burton, without a
fear of meeting some one who remembers. Still I know that as Miss
Burton, of Madison Square, I am safe, but as your sister, in Jersey
City, I should not be; and I will run no risks.”

“Not for Annie’s sake?” Jack asked; and Georgie answered:

“No, not for Annie’s sake,” though her chin quivered a little as she
glanced at the sleeping child.

Then they talked on and on, Jack trying to persuade his sister to stay
with him a little longer, and she as persistently refusing, saying she
must be home, that she had already lost too much time there in Chicago.

“Georgie,” and Jack began to get in earnest, “by losing time, I suppose
you mean losing your chance with Roy Leighton. I’ve never said much to
you upon that subject, but now I may as well free my mind. If Roy
Leighton really cares for you he has had chances enough to make it
known; and that he has not done so is pretty good proof that he does
_not_ care. But supposing he does, and asks you to be his wife, will you
marry him without telling him all?”

“Most certainly I will;” and Georgie’s eyes flashed defiantly. “I need
have no concealments from you, who know me so well, and I tell you
plainly there’s scarcely anything I would not do to secure Roy Leighton;
and do you imagine I would tell him a story which would so surely thrust
him from me? A story, too, which only you know; and you remember your
oath, do you not?”

She said the last words slowly, and her eyes fastened themselves upon
Jack, as a snake’s might rest upon a bird.

“Yes, I remember my oath;” and Jack returned her gaze unflinchingly.

Something in his manner made Georgie wince a little, and resolve to
change her tactics. Sweetness and gentleness had always prevailed with
Jack, when nothing else could move him, and so she tried them now, and
her voice grew very soft, and reverent, and beseeching, as, laying her
hand on his shoulder, she said:

“Don’t let us quarrel, brother. I do want to do right, even if I cannot
tell that dreadful thing to Roy. I am not going home either so much to
see him as for another reason, of which I ought perhaps to have told you
before. Jack, I am trying to be a better woman, and have made up my mind
to be confirmed when our bishop comes to the little church near Oakwood,
which will possibly be week after next. Aunt Burton is anxious for it,
and is going to arrange to be there; and so you see I must go. You do
not blame me now, I am sure. You respect religion, even if you do not
profess it.”

Her hand pressed more lovingly on Jack’s arm, but he shook it off, and,
starting to his feet, confronted her with a look which made her shiver,
and turn pale.

“Blame you?” he began. “Respect religion? Yes, I do; and respect it so
much that sooner than see you take those solemn vows upon you, knowing
what I do, I would break my oath a hundred times, and feel I was doing
right.”

Georgie’s breath came pantingly, and the great drops of sweat stood
around her lips, as she asked:

“What do you propose to do?”

He did not answer her question directly, but went on to say:

“I do not profess to be good myself, or to have the first principles of
goodness, but my mother, who died there in that bed”—and he pointed to
where Annie lay—“knew what religion was, and lived it every day; and
when she died, there was a peace and a glory around her death-bed, which
would not be around yours or mine, were we to die to-night. I am not
judging harshly. By their fruits ye shall know them. He said so,—the man
Jesus, whom mother loved and leaned upon, just as really as she ever
leaned on me, and whom she taught Annie to love and pray to, until He is
as much her companion when she is alone, as you are when you are with
her. Georgie, there is something needed before one kneels at that altar,
as you propose doing,—something which _you_ do not possess. You do _not_
care for the thing in and of itself. You have some selfish object in
view, and I will not be a party to the deception.”

“Will you drag me from the altar, or tear the bishop’s hands from my
head?” Georgie asked, beginning to grow both alarmed and angry at her
brother, who replied:

“No; but this I will do: If you go to confirmation, and if before or
after it Roy Leighton asks you to be his wife, and you do not tell him
the whole truth, I will do it for you. He shall not be deceived.”

“And your oath?” Georgie asked, in a choking voice.

“I break my oath, and do God service in breaking it,” Jack answered.

And then there was silence between them for ten minutes or more, and no
sound was heard except the occasional dropping of a dead coal into the
pan, and the low, regular breathing of the little child, so terribly in
the way of the woman who had so unexpectedly been brought to bay.

She gave up the confirmation then and there, and after a few moments
arose and went to Jack, and putting her arms around his neck, cried
aloud upon his shoulder, and called him the best brother in the world,
and wished she was half as good as he, and a great deal more, which Jack
took at its fair valuation. He was used to her moods, and knew about how
to prize them. Still, in this instance, he had been a little hard on
her, he thought, and he kissed her back at last, and said he was not
angry with her, and bade her go to bed lest she should be sick on the
morrow.

She staid a week after that, and when at last she went away, her diamond
pin, ear-rings, bracelets, and two finger-rings, lay in the show window
of a jeweller’s shop where they bought such articles; and Annie held in
her hand a paper, which contained the sum of one thousand five hundred
dollars, and on which was written, “To help make the first payment on
the new house.”

Annie thought her an angel of goodness and generosity, while Jack, who
understood now why he had seen his sister coming from Jachery’s shop,
said to himself: “There are noble traits in Georgie, after all;” and
felt that the house in Jersey was a sure thing.

The bishop came to the little church near Oakwood at the appointed time,
but Georgie Burton’s proud head was not one on which his hands were
laid. Aunt Burton, who had gone for a week or so up to her country house
and taken Georgie with her, had urged her to it, and so too had the
rector; and when Georgie gave as a reason for holding back, that she was
“not good enough,” the rector said she had set her standard far too
high, while Aunt Burton wondered where the good were to be found if
Georgie was not of the number, and cried softly during the ceremony,
because of her darling’s humility. What Georgie felt no one knew. She
sat very quietly through the service, with her veil dropped over her
face, and only turned her head a little when Maude, who was among the
candidates, went up to the altar. But when Roy Leighton too arose, and
with a calm, peaceful expression upon his manly face, joined the group
gathering in the aisle, she gave a start, and the long lashes which
dropped upon her burning cheeks were moist with tears. She had not
expected this of Roy. He was not one to talk much of his deeper
feelings, and so only his God, and his mother, and the rector, knew of
the determination to lead a new and better life, which had been growing
within him ever since Charlie’s sudden death. “Be ye also prepared, for
in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh,” had sounded in
his ears until he could no longer resist the Spirit’s gentle wooings,
but gave himself to God without reserve of any kind. There was a slight
stir perceptible all through the congregation as Roy went up and stood
by Maude. “He was a member worth getting; he, at least, was sincere,”
even the cavillers at the holy rite thought within themselves; and when
it was over, and he came down the aisle, all noted the expression of his
face as of one who was in earnest, and honest in what he had done.
Georgie saw it, too, and for a moment the justice of what Jack had said
asserted itself in her mind, and in her heart she cried out: “Roy ought
not to be deceived, and yet how could I tell him, even supposing—”

She did not finish the sentence, but she meant, “Supposing he does ask
me to be his wife.”

And Georgie had again strong hopes that he would. He had seemed very
glad to see her when she came to Oakwood; had called on her every day,
and shown in various ways how much he was interested in her. There was
about her now a certain air of softness and humility very attractive to
Roy, and he had half hoped that when he knelt at the altar, Georgie
might be with him, and he felt a little disappointed that she was not,
and he told her so that night after the confirmation, when, as usual, he
called at Oakwood, and they were alone in the parlor. Georgie had borne
a great deal that day, and lived a great deal in the dreadful past which
she would so much like to have blotted out. Her nerves were unstrung,
and when Roy said to her so gently, and still in a sorry kind of way,
“Why were you not confirmed, Georgie?” she broke down entirely, and
laying her head upon the table, cried for a moment like a child.

“Oh, Roy,” she said, at last, looking up at him with her eyes full of
tears, “I did want to; but I am not good enough, and I dared not. But
I’m so glad you did, so glad”,—and she clasped her pretty hands in a
kind of tragic way,—“for now you will teach me, won’t you?”

Roy was a man, and knew nothing of that scene in Chicago, and Georgie
was very beautiful to look upon, and seemed so softened and subdued,
that he felt a strange feeling throbbing in his heart, and would without
doubt have proposed taking the fair penitent as his pupil for life, if
Maude had not just then come suddenly upon them and spoiled their
_tête-à-tête_.

Georgie’s eyes were a little stormy now, but Maude pretended not to
notice it, and seated herself very unconcernedly before the fire, with
her crocheting, thus putting to an end any plan Roy might have had in
his mind with reference to Miss Georgie Burton.

Maude had scarcely seen Roy since her visit to Rocky Point, and she told
him all about Uncle Phil, who was his agent there, and of his niece,
Miss Overton, the prettiest little creature, to whom she had given the
pet name of “Dot,” she was such a wee bit of a thing. And then the
conversation turned upon Charlie and Charlie’s wife; and Maude asked if
anything had yet been heard from her, or if Roy knew where she was. Roy
did not, except that she was teaching, and would not let him know of her
whereabouts.

“How do you know she is teaching then?” Georgie asked; and Roy replied:

“I know through an aunt of hers, to whom I wrote last Christmas, asking
her to forward a box of jet to Edna.”

“Oh-h!” and Maude jumped as if she had been shot; then quickly
recovering herself, she exclaimed: “That dreadful pin,” and put her hand
to her collar as if the cause of her agitation were there.

Maude had received an impression, which made her quiver all over with
excitement, and sent her at last to her own room, where she bounded
about like a rubber ball.

“I knew there was something queer about her all the time, but I never
suspected that. Poor little Dot; how I must have hurt her feelings with
my foolish talk of Charlie, if she really is his widow, and I know she
is, for I remember now how interested she was in the Leightons, and how
many questions she asked me about Roy and his mother; and then that box
of jet. I’m sure of it,—perfectly sure; but, Dotty, if I can ferret out
a secret, I can keep one too: and if you don’t want Roy to know where
you are, he never shall from me.”

Maude wrote to Edna that night, and told her everything about the
Leightons which she thought would interest her, and then with feverish
impatience waited for her summer’s vacation, when she meant to go again
to Rocky Point, and satisfy herself.

Roy did not renew the conversation Maude had interrupted, but when in
the spring he decided upon his trip to Europe, he half made up his mind
to take Georgie Burton with him. He knew it would please his mother, and
from all that had passed between himself and the lady he felt that he
was in some sort bound to make her his wife; and why wait any longer?
She was at Oakwood now. City air did not agree with her as formerly; she
felt tired all the time, she told her aunt, who was ever ready to
gratify her darling’s slightest whim, consented to leave New York at
least a month earlier than usual, but never dreamed that the real cause
of Georgie’s pretended weariness was to be found in the pleasant little
house in Jersey City, where Jack Heyford was settling himself. Although
constantly assuring herself that her fears were groundless, Georgie
could not shake off the nervous dread that, by Jack’s presence in New
York, the black page of her life might somehow come to light. She went
over to Jersey several times, for she could not keep away; but she took
the Hoboken Ferry, and then came in the street car to the corner near
which Jack lived, thinking thus to avoid meeting any one who knew her,
and would wonder what she was doing in Jersey City. Still it was not so
much through herself as through Jack that she dreaded recognition; and
until he was fairly settled and at work, and swallowed up in the great
Babel, it was better for her to be away; and so she went to Oakwood, and
saw Roy every day, and was so soft, and sweet, and pious, and
interesting in her new _rôle_ of half-invalid, that Roy made up his
mind, and started one morning to settle the important question.

His route lay past the post-office, and there he found the letter Edna
had written in answer to his own, acknowledging the receipt of the
money. He read it in the shadow of an old elm-tree, which grew by the
roadside, and under which he dismounted for a moment. There was nothing
remarkable in it, but it turned Roy’s thoughts from Georgie for a time,
and sent them after the frolicsome little girl whom he had once seen in
the car, and who was now his sister. She wrote a very pretty hand, and
seemed so grateful for the few crumbs of interest he had given her, that
he wished so much he knew where she was. If he did, he believed he would
take _her_ to Europe, instead of Georgie; but not as his wife,—he never
thought of such a thing in connection with Edna,—but as his sister, for
such she was. And so, with her letter in his hand, he sat thinking of
her, while his pony fed upon the fresh grass by the fence, and feeling
no check from bit or bridle, kept going farther and farther away, until,
when Roy’s reverie was ended, and he looked about for his horse, he saw
him far down the road, in the direction of Leighton Place, instead of
Oakwood. Roy started after him at once; but the pony did not care to be
caught, and seeing his master coming, he pricked up his ears and started
for home, where Roy found him at last, standing quietly by the stable
door, as if nothing had happened. That circumstance kept Roy from
Georgie’s side that day, and when on the morrow he saw her at his own
house, he was guilty of a feeling of relief that he had not committed
himself, and would have no one’s luggage but his mother’s and his own to
look after in Europe.

He sailed early in June, and Georgie stood upon the wharf, and watched
the vessel as it went down the bay, and felt such bitter pain in her
heart as paled the roses on her cheek, and quenched some of the
brightness of her eyes.

“Roy is lost to me forever,” she said to herself, as she re-entered her
aunt’s carriage, and was driven back to Madison Square.

Still, as long as he remained unmarried, there was hope; and though her
youth was rapidly slipping away, she would rather wait on the slightest
chance of winning Roy Leighton, than give herself to another. And so,
that summer,—at Saratoga, where she reigned a belle,—she refused two
very eligible offers; one from the young heir of a proud Boston family;
the other from a widower of sixty, with a million and a half of gold,
and seven grown-up daughters.




                              CHAPTER XXV.
                             IN THE SUMMER.


Maude spent her summer vacation at Uncle Phil’s, where she was received
with every demonstration of joy by each one of the family, Uncle Phil
dragging her off at once to see the “_suller hole_” of his chapel, or
“synagogue,” as he called it, which was not progressing very fast; “such
hard work to get the men, and when they do come, they won’t work more
than half the time, and want such all-fired big wages, it is enough to
break a feller; but then I’m in for it, and it’s got to go,” he said to
Maude, who expressed so much delight, and called him a darling man so
many times, and showed her trim, pretty ancles and dainty white tucks
and ruffles with such _abandon_, as she stepped over the stones and
sticks of timber, that Uncle Phil felt “curis again at the pit of his
stomach,” and did not care how much his synagogue cost, if Maude was
only pleased.

Maude did not talk to Edna quite so much as usual at first; she was
studying her closely, and trying to recall what she had heard Georgie
say of Mrs. Charlie Churchill’s looks. Then she began to lay little
traps for her, and Edna fell into some of them, and then fell out again
so adroitly, that Maude was kept in a constant fever of excitement,
until one day, early in August, when, in walking by herself up the road
which led to the hotel on the mountain, she met Jack Heyford, who had
arrived the night before, and was on his way, he said, to call on her.

“I was up here a few years ago,” he explained, as they walked back
together, “and I retained so pleasant a remembrance of the mountain
scenery that I wanted to see it again; so, as I could have a vacation of
two weeks, I came first to Oakwood, but it was lonely there with Georgie
gone; she’s off to Saratoga, you know, and hearing you were here, I
concluded to come too. You are stopping at a farm-house. I have an
indistinct recollection of Mr. Overton; a queer old fellow, isn’t he?”

He talked very fast, and Maude did not hear more than half he said, for
her tumultuous thoughts. If Louise Overton were really Edna Churchill,
then Jack Heyford would recognize her, for he had been with her at the
time of the accident, and had seen her frequently in Chicago.

“Yes, I have her now,” Maude thought, as she said to Jack. “Mr. Overton
has a niece living with him, Miss Louise Overton, a pretty little
creature, whom you are sure to fall in love with. I hardly think she
could have been here when you were at Rocky Point before.”

“No, I think not. I have no recollection of seeing a person of that
name. Pretty, is she?” Jack answered as indifferently as if he really
had no idea of meeting any young lady at the farm-house, except Maude
herself, and that his sole object that morning, was to call upon the
girl chatting so gayly at his side, and telling him how pretty and
charming and sweet Miss Overton was, and how he was certain to lose his
heart at once.

“Suppose I have lost it already,” Jack said, glancing at Maude, whose
cheeks flushed a little, and who tossed her head airily and made him
some saucy reply.

Of all the young men she had known, Maude liked Jack Heyford the best.
She had thought him a little awkward and rusty when she first saw him at
Oakwood, but had recognized through all the genuine worth and goodness
of the man, and felt that he was true as steel. He was greatly improved
since that time, and Maude was not unconscious of the attention she was
attracting as she sauntered slowly on with the handsome stranger at her
side. Edna saw them coming.

Indeed, she had watched all the morning for Jack, for she knew he was to
have reached the Mountain House the night before, and that he would call
on _Miss Somerton_ that morning, and be introduced to her; and her
conscience smote her for the part she was acting.

“If Uncle Phil was not so foolish about it, I should tell Maude at
once,” she thought, as after Maude’s departure for a walk she made her
toilet, in expectation of Jack Heyford’s call.

She had schooled herself so well that when at last Jack came and was
presented to her, she received him without the least sign that this was
not their first meeting; and Maude, who watched them curiously, felt
chagrined and disappointed that neither manifested the slightest token
of recognition, but met as entire strangers.

“It’s funny, when I am so sure,” she thought; and for several days she
lived in a constant fever of excitement and perplexity.

Regularly each day Jack came to the cottage, and stayed so long that
Becky suspected him to be “Miss Maude’s beau;” while Ruth Gardner, who
was there frequently to help make up the game of croquet, interpreted
his manner differently, and guessed that while he jested with and teased
Miss Somerton, his preference was for Edna, who was evidently bent upon
not encouraging him in the least, or giving him a chance to speak.

But Jack had his chance at last, on a morning when Maude and Ruth, with
Maria Belknap and the Unitarian minister, were playing croquet upon the
lawn behind the farm-house, and Edna was sitting alone on the stoop of
the front door. Uncle Phil was gone, and as Aunt Becky was busy with her
dinner in the kitchen, there was nothing in the way, and Jack told his
story in that frank, outspoken way which characterized all he did. It
was not like Charlie’s wooing; it lacked the impetuous, boyish fire
which refused to be denied, and yet Edna knew that the love offered to
her now was worth far more than Charlie’s love had been; that with Jack
Heyford she should rest secure, knowing that no shadow of wrong had ever
soiled his garments. And for a moment she hesitated, and thought of
Annie, whom she loved, and looked up into the honest eyes regarding her
so eagerly, and coming gradually to have a sorry, anxious expression as
she did not answer.

“Won’t you speak to me, Edna?” he said. “Won’t you answer me?”

“Oh, Mr. Heyford,” she cried at last. “I am so sorry you have told me
this, for I don’t believe I can say yes, at least not now. Give me till
to-morrow, and then if I find that I can be to you what your wife ought
to be, I will.”

Jack did not press her further, and when the croquet party came round
from the lawn, they found Edna sitting there alone, and Mr. Heyford gone
back to the Mountain House.

That night, when Uncle Phil came from the post-office, he brought a
letter from Aunt Jerry, enclosing one from Roy, who had written from a
little inn among the Scottish hills. It was only a pleasant, friendly
letter, telling of his journeyings and his mother’s health, which did
not seem to improve; but it sealed Jack Heyford’s fate.

Edna had no thought of ever marrying Roy, but she could not marry Jack,
and she sat down to tell him so on paper, feeling that she could do it
in this way with less of pain and embarrassment to them both. And as she
wrote, Roy’s letter lay open beside her, and Maude came bounding up the
stairs and stood at her side, almost before she knew that she was
coming. With a quick motion she put Roy’s letter away, but not until
Maude’s eyes had glanced at and recognized the handwriting.

“Eureka,” she whispered softly; and then, to Edna’s utter astonishment,
Maude knelt down beside her, and putting her arms around her neck, said
to her: “Dotty, don’t be angry, will you? I always find out things, and
you are Edna Churchill.”

Edna felt as if she was suffocating. Her throat closed spasmodically, so
that she could not speak, and for an instant she sat motionless, staring
at Maude, who, frightened at the expression of her face, kissed her
lips, and forehead, and cheek, and said:

“Don’t take it so hard. Nobody shall know your secret from me; nobody, I
assure you. I have guessed it ever so long. It was the _jet_ which
brought it to me. Roy spoke of his sister once last winter, and said he
had sent her some ornaments of jet, and then it flashed over me that my
little Dotty was the girl in whom I had been so interested ever since I
first heard of her. Speak to me, Dot. You are not offended?”

“No,” Edna gasped at last. “Only it came so sudden. I am glad you know.
I wanted you to know it, it seemed so like a miserable lie I was living
all the time.”

And then the two girls talked a long, long time, of Edna’s early life,
of Charlie, and of Roy, whose letter Edna showed to Maude, and of whom
she never tired of hearing. Thus it came about that Edna’s note to Jack
was not finished, and Edna gave him his answer verbally the next
morning, when, punctual to the appointed time, he came and walked with
her alone down to the clump of chestnut trees, which grew near the
roadside. Something in Edna’s face, when he first saw it that morning,
prepared him in part, but the blow cut deep and hurt him cruelly. Still
without love, Jack did not want any woman for his wife, and when Edna
said, “I respect and like you more than any man I know, but cannot find
in my heart the love you ought to have in return for what you give,” he
did not urge her, but took both her hands in his, and kissing them
reverently, said:

“You have dealt fairly with me, Edna, and I thank you for it, and will
be your friend just as I always have been. Let there be no difference
between us, and in proof thereof, kiss me once. I will never ask it
again.”

He stooped down to her, and she gave the boon he asked, and said to him,
in a choking voice:

“God bless you, Mr. Heyford, and you may one day find a wife tenfold
more worthy of you than I can ever be.” They walked slowly back to the
house, and found Maude waiting for them, with her mallet in hand, and
Uncle Phil in close custody, with a most lugubrious expression on his
face. Maude, who was nearly croquet mad, had waylaid the old man, and
captured him, and coaxed a mallet into his hand, and was leading him in
triumph to the playground, when Jack and Edna came up, and she insisted
upon their joining her.

“A four-handed game was so much nicer,” she said; “and Mr. Heyford and
Uncle Phil were so fairly matched,” and she looked so jaunty in her
short, coquettish dress, and pleaded so skilfully, that Jack took the
offered mallet, and, sad as was his heart just then, he found a space in
which to think how pretty Miss Somerton was, and how gracefully she
managed her mallet, and how small and well-shaped was the little foot
she poised so skilfully upon the balls when bent upon croqueting.

Maude Somerton was very beautiful, and there was a power in her sunny
blue eyes, and a fascination in her coaxing, winning ways, which few men
could resist. Even sturdy Uncle Phil felt their influence, and under the
witching spell of her beauty did things for which, when he was alone, he
called himself “a silly old fool, to be so carried away with a girl’s
pranks.”

Maude sported the first short dress which had appeared in Rocky Point,
and she looked so odd, and pretty withal, in her girlish costume of
white, trimmed with a pale buff, and she wore such stylish gaiters, and
showed them so much with their silken tassels, that Uncle Phil confessed
again to a “curis feeling in his stomach,” and was not sure whether it
was quite the thing for an old chap like him to let his eyes rest often
on those little feet, and that trim, lithe form, which flitted so airily
around the wickets, and made such havoc with the enemy’s balls. It
surely was not well for a young man like _Jack_ to look at her often, he
decided, especially when arrayed in that short gown, which made her look
so like a little girl, and showed her feet so plainly.

They had a merry game, and Jack was interested in spite of himself, and
accepted Uncle Phil’s invitation to stay to dinner, and felt a queer
little throb in his veins when Maude, acknowledging Edna and himself
victors, insisted upon crowning them as such, and wove a wreath of
myrtle for Edna’s hair, while for him she gathered a bouquet, and
fastened it in his button-hole.

She had said to Edna, “I shall tell Mr. Heyford that I know your secret.
I must talk to somebody about it.” And seizing the opportunity when Edna
was in the house consulting with Becky about the dessert, she told him
what she had discovered, and waxed so enthusiastic over “little Dot,”
and arranged the bouquet in his button-hole a little more to her liking,
and stood, with her glowing face and fragrant breath, so near to him,
and did it all so innocently, that Jack began to wonder he had never
before observed “how very beautiful Miss Somerton was, and what pleasant
ways she had,” and when he went back to the Mountain House at night, his
heart, though very sore and sad, was not utterly crushed and desolate.

He played croquet the next day and the next, sometimes with Edna for his
partner, but oftener with Maude, who, being the champion player,
undertook to teach him and correct some of his faults. He must not
_poke_, nor stand behind, nor strike too hard, nor go after other balls
when he could as well make his wicket first. And Jack tried to learn,
and do his teacher justice, and became at last almost as interested in
the game as Maude herself, whom he sometimes beat. And when at the end
of his two weeks’ vacation he went back to his business in New York, he
seemed much like himself, and Edna felt that he was bearing his
disappointment bravely, and that in time life would be to him just what
it had been before he thought of her.

Maude’s departure followed close upon Jack’s, and as she bade Edna
good-by, she said, “I shall never rest, Dotty, till I see you at
Leighton, where you belong. But I want you to go there first as Louise
Overton. Take my word for it, you will succeed better so, with _la
mère_, and possibly with _le frère_ too. When they come home I am going
to manage for you. See now if I don’t Adieu.”




                             CHAPTER XXVI.
                          AFTER ANOTHER YEAR.


Roy Leighton remained abroad little more than a year, and about the
middle of July came back to his home on the river, which had never
seemed so pleasant and attractive as on the summer afternoon when he
drove through the well-kept grounds, and up to the side door where his
servants were assembled to welcome him. Travelling had not greatly
benefited his mother, who returned almost as much an invalid as when she
went away, and to her ailments now added that of rapidly failing
eyesight. There were films growing over both her eyes, so that she could
only see her beautiful home indistinctly, and after greeting the
domestics, she went at once to her room, while Roy repaired to the
library, where he found several letters, which had come for him within
the last few days. One was in Miss Jerusha Pepper’s handwriting, and Roy
opened that first, and found, as he expected, that it inclosed one from
Edna.

She did not write in her usual cheerful tone, and seemed sorry that she
had not been able to make him a single payment during the year.

“My school is not so large as at first,” she wrote; “and I was anxious
to pay another debt, of which I once told you, I believe. I _have_ paid
that now, except twenty-five dollars of interest money, and you don’t
know how happy it makes me that I can almost see my way clear, and shall
soon owe no one but yourself.

“I am glad that you are coming home again, for though I do not know you,
it has seemed lonely with you so far away, and I gladly welcome you back
again. If I thought your mother would not be angry, I would send my love
to her, but if you think she will, don’t give it to her, please.”

“I shall take the risk, any way,” Roy thought; and carrying the letter
to his mother, he read it aloud, and as she seemed interested, and
inclined to talk, proposed going to see Miss Pepper, and ascertain, if
possible, where Edna was.

Mrs. Churchill did not quite favor this plan, and still she did not
directly oppose it, but sat talking of “the girl,” as she designated
her, until the summer twilight was creeping down the hills and across
the river, and Georgie Burton came in with Maude Somerton. It was more
than a year since Georgie had met Roy, and she assumed towards him a
shy, coy manner, which rather pleased him than otherwise, and made him
think her greatly improved.

Maude was her same old self, chatty, full of life and spirits, and a
little inquisitive withal.

“Had Mrs. Churchill or Roy ever heard from Mrs. Charlie during their
absence, and where did they suppose she was?”

Roy answered that “he had heard from her a few times by way of her aunt,
but that he did not know where she was, as she still chose to keep her
place of abode a secret from them.”

Having said so much, he would gladly have changed the conversation, but
his mother was not inclined to do so, and she talked about “the girl,”
and Roy’s proposition to find her if possible, and bring her home with
him.

“He thinks I need some young person with me all the time,” she said;
“and perhaps I do, for my sight is failing every day, and soon I shall
be blind.”

Her lip quivered a little, and then she added: “But whether _Edna_ would
be the one, I do not know. What do you think, Georgie? I must have
somebody, I suppose.”

There was a slight flush in Georgie’s face as she replied, that “if Edna
were the right kind of person, she should think it an excellent plan.”

“And we will never know what she is until we try her,” Roy rejoined,
while Maude, who had been very quiet during this conversation, now spoke
up and said: “In case you cannot find Edna, allow me to make a
suggestion, and propose a dear little friend of mine; a charming person
every way, pretty, and lady-like, and refined; in short, just the one to
be with Mrs. Churchill. I refer to that Miss Overton, whom I met at
Rocky Point last year, niece to Mr. Philip Overton, Roy’s agent, you
know. I wish you would take her, Mrs. Churchill; I am so sure you would
like her.”

Mrs. Churchill was not yet quite prepared for Edna, and as she really
did feel the need of some one in the house besides the servants, she
took the side of Miss Overton at once, and asked numberless questions
about her, and finally expressed her willingness that Maude should write
and see if the young lady would come. Georgie, too, favored the Overton
cause, while Roy stood firm for Edna, and when the ladies arose to go he
accompanied them to the door, and said to Maude in a low tone: “I would
rather you should _not_ write to that Miss——what did you call her?—until
I have seen Miss Pepper, as I fully intend doing in a short time. I am
resolved to find Edna, if possible; and having found her, to bring her
and mother together, trusting all the rest to chance.”

“Very well,” was Maude’s reply; but before she slept that night she
wrote a long letter to “Dot” telling her what the probabilities were of
her becoming, ere long, a member of Roy’s household, and telling her
also of Roy’s intended visit to her aunt, who might as well be
forewarned.

Four days after the date of this letter, which threw Edna into a great
state of excitement, Aunt Jerry read with total unconcern that Roy
Leighton was coming to see her and ascertain, if possible, where her
niece was living.

“But don’t tell him, Aunt Jerry, please,” Edna wrote. “As Miss Overton I
may possibly go to Leighton Place, and Mrs. Churchill is sure to like me
better as a stranger than if she knew I was ‘that dreadful girl’ who ran
away with Charlie; so keep your own counsel, do.”

“As if I needed that advice,” Aunt Jerry muttered to herself, as she
folded up the letter and put it in the clock, wondering “when the chap
was coming, and how long he would stay.”

“Not that I’m afraid of him or any other man, only I’d like to be
looking decent on the girl’s account,” she said, as she glanced about
her always tidy, well-kept house, to see what there was lacking. “The
winders were awful nasty,” she concluded, and she went at them at once
with soap and sand, and rubbed them till they shone, and scoured her
cellar stairs, and put fresh linen on the bed in the front chamber, in
case he should stay all night, and carried water up there and a bit of
Castile soap, and put a prayer-book on the stand at the head of his bed,
and wondered if he was high or low, and whether he would expect to ask a
blessing at the table.

“I shall ask him to, any way,” she said, and then she made a fresh cask
of root beer, which she always kept in summer, and baked a huge pound
cake, and made some balls of Dutch cheese, and wore her second-best
calico every morning, and her best gingham every afternoon, in
expectance of her guest, who did not appear for more than two weeks, and
who took her at the last wholly unawares, as is so frequently the case.

She had given up his coming, and was making a barrel of soap in the
lane, but so close to her front yard as to be plainly visible to any one
who should stop at her gate. She did not wear her second-best calico
that morning, but was arrayed in her cleaning-house costume, a quilted
petticoat, patched with divers colors and kinds of calico, delaine, and
silk, blue, green, and black, with here and there a bit of scarlet, the
whole forming a most wonderful garment, which would at first sight
remind one of Joseph’s coat.

She never wore hoops in the morning, and her short, patchwork quilt,
hung loose and limp about her feet, which were encased in what she
called her “slips,” a pair of low, cloth shoes, she had herself
manufactured. A loose calico sacque, or short gown, surmounted her
petticoat, and with the exception of the shaker on her head, with its
faded brown cape, made from an old barege veil, completed her costume.
She was equipped for her work, with no thought of Roy Leighton in her
mind, and the fire was blazing brightly under her big iron kettle, and
the soap was boiling merrily, and with her sleeves above her elbows, she
stood, saucer in hand, stirring and cooling some of the glutinous mass,
and had about concluded that it needed a little more lye, when the sound
of wheels was heard, and a covered buggy and a gay, high-mettled horse
came dashing round the corner of the church, and stopped before her
gate, where a fine, stylish-looking man alighted, and seemed to be
looking curiously about him, and possibly speculating as to whether he
really had seen the whisk of a gay-colored skirt disappearing round the
house or not.

Aunt Jerry had always expected Roy in the stage, and had never thought
of his hiring a carriage at Canandaigua, and driving himself out; but
the moment she saw him she guessed who it was, and in her surprise
dropped her saucer of soap, and came near slipping down from setting her
foot in it as she hurried out of sight.

“The very old boy! if that ain’t Roy Leighton, and I lookin’ more like
an evil spirit than a decent woman!” was her first exclamation.

Then her natural disposition asserted itself, and instead of stealing
into the house and effecting a change of toilet before receiving her
guest, she resolved to brave it out, and make the best of it.

“I’m dressed for my work,” she said, “and if he don’t like my
appearance, he can look t’other way.” And holding her head very high,
Aunt Jerry came round the corner of the house just as Roy was knocking,
for the second time, at the open door.

He saw her, and could scarcely keep his face straight, as he asked “if
Miss Pepper lived there?”

“Yes; I’m Miss Pepper.” And Aunt Jerry began to unroll one of her
sleeves, and button it around her wrist.

“Ah, yes; I am glad to see you. I am Roy Leighton,—Edna’s
brother-in-law.”

“Oh, you be!” Aunt Jerry answered, rather dryly; and as he had come
close to her now, and her soap was near boiling over, she darted toward
the lye leech, and seizing a wooden dipper poured some of the dark fluid
into the boiling mass, while Roy stood looking on, wondering what she
was doing, for it was his first experience with soap-making, and
thinking of Macbeth’s witches:

                  “‘Double, double, toil and trouble;
                  Fire burn, and caldron bubble,’”

he said, very softly, to himself, adding, in a little louder tone, as
she threw in the lye:

                   “‘Cool it with a babboon’s blood,
                   Then the charm is firm and good.’”

Aunt Jerry caught the last line, and turning upon him, ladle in hand,
she said, a little proudly:

“I suppose I look so like an old hag that you don’t think I know
anything about what you are muttering to yourself, but I do. I held that
book before the Bible when I was young, and now,

                    “‘By the pricking of my thumbs,

I know that

                  “‘Something wicked this way comes.’”

Roy laughed merrily, and offering her his hand, said to her:

“Shakespeare with a vengeance; but I trust the pricking in your thumbs
does not insinuate that I am the ‘wicked something’ which comes your
way, for I assure you I come ‘on peaceful thoughts intent,’ but tell me,
please, what you _are_ doing in that seething caldron; and if the toad,
and the bat, and the Jew’s liver, are all in the poisoned broth?”

Aunt Jerry looked at him a moment, to see if his ignorance were real or
feigned, and then replied:

“Where was you born, not to know _soft-soap_ when you see it?”

“I was born in Bleecker street, New York, when that was the place where
to be born,” Roy replied; and with the ice thus broken, the two grew
very sociable, and Roy made himself master of the mysteries of
soap-making, and began to feel a deep interest in this strange woman,
who made no movement toward the house until her soap was done, and the
brands carefully taken from under the kettle.

Then she invited him into her kitchen, and disappearing in the direction
of her bedroom, emerged therefrom in a few moments arrayed in her purple
calico and white apron, which for several days she had worn in
expectation of his coming. Aunt Jerry was something of a puzzle to Roy.
Regarding her simply as an ordinary stranger, she amused and interested
him, but when he thought of her as Edna’s aunt, and remembered the first
letter received from her, he winced a little, and wondered if her niece
was like her. They spoke of Edna at once, and Roy told why he had come,
and asked if Miss Pepper would give him her niece’s address.

But Aunt Jerry was firm as a rock. “She never had told a lie since she
joined the church,” she said, “and she did not believe she should
commence at this late day, with one foot in the grave. She promised Edna
not to tell, and she shouldn’t. The girl was doing well, and was more of
a woman than she had ever ’sposed she could be. She has paid a good
share of her debts,” she continued, “leastwise she’s paid nearly all she
owes me; but if you think me mean enough to keep it,—and from what you
wrote me once about a receipt I take it you do,—you are greatly
mistaken. I’ve put every dollar of the four hundred in the Savings Bank,
and as much more with it, in Edna’s name; and when she’s twenty-one, or
if she marries before that time, I intend to give it to her. Let them
that’s richer do better if they will.”

She jerked out the last words with a side motion at Roy, who took her
meaning but said nothing of his own intentions with regard to Edna,
further than his wish to find her and take her to Leighton Place. But he
might as well have talked to a stone, for any effect his words produced
on Aunt Jerusha.

“When Edna says I may tell, I will, and not before. I was harsh and
unreasonable with her when she was young, perhaps, but I’ll do my duty
now,” she said; then turning rather fiercely toward Roy, she continued:
“My advice is that you let Edna alone, if you don’t want to make more
trouble for that mother of yours, who thinks her boy _stooped_. If I do
say it that shouldn’t, there’s something mighty takin’ about Edna, and
every boy in these parts was bewitched after her before she was
knee-high to a grasshopper. She ain’t much more than that now, and she’s
a wonderful pretty girl, such as a chap like you would be sure to fancy.
How old be you?”

Roy confessed to thirty, and Aunt Jerry complimented him by saying
“she’d ’sposed him older than that,” and then glancing at the clock,
which pointed at half-past eleven, she asked him to stay to dinner, “and
see how poor folks lived.”

Roy’s first impulse was to decline, but in spite of himself he was
attracted by this queer woman, who boiled soap in so unsightly a garb,
and quoted Shakespeare while she did it, and showed, in all she said and
did, a striking originality of character, which pleased while it
surprised him. He accepted her invitation to dine with her, and while
she was making the needful preparations, looked curiously around the
home which had once been Edna’s. It was scrupulously neat and clean, and
very comfortable, still he could imagine just how a bright young girl
would pine and languish there, and long to break away from the grim
stillness and loneliness of the house.

“Poor Edna,” he said to himself, more than once, while there awoke in
his heart a longing to take the little girl in his arms and comfort her,
after all she had borne of loneliness and sorrow.

Aunt Jerry’s dinner, though not like the dinners at Leighton Place, was
tempting and appetizing, and Roy did full justice to it, and drank two
cups of coffee, for the cream, he said, and ate two pieces of berry pie,
and a fried cake for dessert, and suffered from dyspepsia for the
remainder of the day. Aunt Jerry asked him to spend the night, but Roy
declined, and said good-by to her soon after dinner was over. His
attempt to find Edna was a failure, and he went back to his mother, who,
secretly, was glad, for she was not at all enthusiastic with regard to
having her daughter-in-law for a companion. She greatly preferred Miss
Overton from Rocky Point. Indeed, she had conceived quite a liking for
that unknown young lady, and as soon as Roy came home and reported his
ill success, she made him write at once to Miss Overton, asking if she
would come, and what her terms were.

“Perhaps you’d better name three hundred and fifty dollars a year; that
surely is enough,” Mrs. Churchill said; and so Roy, to whom a few
dollars more or less was nothing, and who felt that to be constantly
with a half-blind, nervous invalid was no desirable position, made it
four hundred dollars, and asked for an early reply.




                             CHAPTER XXVII.
                             EDNA ACCEPTS.


During the last few months Edna’s school had not been as large as usual,
and when at last it closed for the summer vacation, it numbered only
fifteen scholars, and she was not quite certain that she should open it
again. She was as popular as ever. No one had aught to say against her,
but Uncle Phil’s “Synagogue” had gotten him into a world of trouble, and
made him many enemies. So long as the work made little or no progress,
the people were quiet and regarded the thing as a crazy kind of project
which, let alone, would die a natural death. And for a time it did bid
fair to do so, for what with the trouble to get men, and the fearfully
high prices when he did get them, and the bother it was to see to them,
Uncle Phil was inclined to take the matter easy, and after the
cellar-wall was laid, there were weeks and months during which nothing
was done, and Squire Gardner said, with a knowing wink, “We hain’t lost
the old man yet,” and began to talk seriously of repairing his own
church and having the ladies get up a Fair, of which his wife and Ruth
were to be head and front. Accordingly Ruth came down one day to talk
with Edna about it, and get her interested, as with her taste and skill
she was sure to be a powerful ally if once enlisted in the cause. But
Edna would not commit herself, and Ruth returned home disheartened and
disappointed.

That night Uncle Phil was attacked with dizziness and a rush of blood to
his head, which frightened him nearly out of his wits.

“I can’t die yet,” he said, when recovered somewhat, “but it came pretty
nigh takin’ me off. Yes, yes; had a narrer escape; but I can’t go yet;
it’s no use talkin’. I ain’t ready, and that synagogue business ain’t
moved a peg this two months; but if the Lord will set me on my legs
agin, I promise to go at it at once. Try me and see if I don’t.”

He was taken at his word, and once well again he attacked the chapel
with a right good-will, and brought out men from Millville, and boarded
them himself, and kept them at work early and late, and proved so
conclusively that he was in earnest, that his opponents took the alarm,
and waiting upon him a second time grew so warm and even provoking that
Uncle Phil blazed up fiercely, and said he wouldn’t give a red toward
any other church, nor ask anybody to give to his, and swore so hard that
the Unitarians asked “how soon he intended to be confirmed;” while the
Orthodox added that “it was of such materials the Episcopal church was
composed,” and then Uncle Phil wondered if he was not being “persecuted
for righteousness’ sake,” and if it would not be put to his account as a
kind of offset for the _hay_ he had raked up and gotten into the barn
away from the rain on two or three different Sundays which he could
remember.

People did not mean to mix Edna up in her uncle’s quarrel, but it
affected her nevertheless, and on one pretext and another the Gardners
left the school, while others gradually dropped off too, until Edna
began seriously to think she might be obliged to seek employment
elsewhere, and had some thoughts of going to New York and devoting
herself wholly to her favorite occupation,—drawing and painting. She and
Jack were the best of friends, and through him she hoped to get a
situation in the city, and she was about writing to him with reference
to it, when she heard from Maude of Roy’s plan concerning herself, and
then received his letter containing the offer, which she decided at once
to accept. Among her other accomplishments, she numbered that of
imitating, or adapting herself with great facility to different styles
of handwriting, and this was a help to her now. Roy knew her natural
handwriting, and it was necessary that she should take another. Next to
her own, the style she used with the most ease was a pretty, running
back-hand, and she adopted this in the letter she wrote to Mr. Leighton
accepting his offer, and naming the first of September as the most
convenient time for her to come to Leighton, provided it suited Mrs.
Churchill. It did suit Mrs. Churchill, who seemed much better now that
she had something to look forward to, and who began to take a great
interest in having everything comfortable and pleasant for the stranger.

“I shall want her near me, of course,” she said to Georgie, who was
often at the house; “and yet I do not wish her to feel as if she were a
prisoner, tied close to my side. Here’s this little room opening out of
mine; but I think it is too small, don’t you?”

Without waiting for an answer, Mrs. Churchill stepped into the hall, and
opening a door directly opposite her own, continued:

“I have about decided to give her this one. It is near my own, and very
pleasant too. Do you think she will like it?”

Georgie did not say that this room, with the bay-window and fine river
view, was the one of all others which she would choose for her own, in
case she was ever fortunate enough to reign as mistress of the house,
but she did suggest that Miss Overton ran some risk of being spoiled if
the best were given her at first. “I dare say the little room opening
from yours is quite as good as she has been accustomed to, and will suit
her very well,” she said, but Mrs. Churchill did not think so. She felt
a deep interest in the young stranger, and wished everything to be as
pleasant for her as possible.

“If I could only see better, I should know if things were right,” she
said; “but I can’t, and I wish you would superintend a little, and if
anything is out of place, see that it is righted.”

And so it came about that Georgie, instead of Maude, saw to the
arranging of Edna’s room, which, though not quite so handsomely
furnished as some of the others, was the largest and pleasantest chamber
in the house. Georgie had always coveted it, and now as she stood giving
some directions to the housemaid, she felt a pang of envy toward the
young girl who was to occupy it, and live under the same roof with Roy.
She was too proud to acknowledge even to herself that she was jealous of
a school-mistress, but she could not help envying her in some respects,
and as she was very curious to see her, she waited with almost as much
impatience as did Mrs. Churchill herself for the arrival of the
stranger.




                            CHAPTER XXVIII.
                         EDNA GOES TO LEIGHTON.


Owing to some mistake Roy did not get Edna’s second letter, telling him
when to expect her, consequently there was no one waiting for her at the
station and learning that Leighton Place was only three-quarters of a
mile distant, she determined to make the journey on foot. It was one of
those bright, balmy days in early September, when nature, like a matron
in the full maturity of her charms, reigns in all her loveliness a very
queen. On the hills there was that soft, purplish haze, which only
autumn brings; and the sky above was without a cloud, save here and
there a floating, feathery mist, which intensified the deep blue of the
heavens, while the Hudson slept so calmly and quietly in the golden
sunshine, that Edna involuntarily found herself recalling the lines:

                 “River, in this still hour thou hast
                 Too much of heaven on earth to last.”

Indeed, everything around her seemed almost too much like heaven for her
to keep it long; and when at last she reached the gate which opened into
the Leighton grounds, she was obliged to stop and rest upon a rustic
bench, beneath one of the maples which shaded the park.

She was there at last at Charlie’s old home, and her eyes were feasting
themselves upon the beauties, which had not been overdrawn either by
Charlie’s partiality, or Maude’s enthusiasm. Everything was
beautiful,—from the green, velvety turf, the noble elms, the profusion
of bright flowers and shrubs, to the handsome house, with its broad
piazza and friendly open doors, all basking in the warmth and sunlight
of that autumnal morning. “It is like a second Eden,” she said; and
then, with a sad kind of a smile, born of a sudden heart-pang, she
glanced toward the river, and saw what she knew must be the roof of the
Gothic cottage, whither she once intended moving Roy and his mother, so
they would not be in the way of the gayeties with which she meant to
fill the house. That time lay far back in the past. And she had learned
a great deal since then. Charlie was dead; and his grave was on a little
knoll to the right of the house. Maude had told her all about it, and
she could see the marble gleaming through the evergreens; and she
shuddered as she always did, when she recalled the awful night of nearly
two years ago. Still, time, which will heal almost any heart-wound, had
been very kind to Edna, and though she always remembered Charlie with
sadness and pity, thoughts of him had long since ceased to make her
unhappy; and when at last she left her seat by the gate and pursued her
way to the house, Roy was more in her mind than the boy Charlie, who
slept under the evergreens, all unconscious that his wife was standing
now at the very portal of his old home, and ringing for admission. Her
ring was answered by the servant girl, who, inviting Edna into the
library, bade her be seated while she carried her card to her mistress.
Holding it close to her poor, dim eyes, Mrs. Churchill made out the word
“Overton,” and knew the expected stranger had come.

“How awkward that Roy should be gone,” she said, as, declining the
servant’s offered aid, she made her way alone to the library.

It was a peculiarity of hers not to be helped by any one if she could
avoid it, and there was something touching and pitiful about her as she
walked slowly through the hall, trying to _seem_ to see, with one hand
partly extended in front, and making sundry graceful, cautious motions.

Edna heard her, and arose to meet her, her cheeks glowing and her breath
coming pantingly at first, but when she saw the pale, languid woman, who
stopped just inside the door, all her nervousness left her suddenly, and
quick as thought she darted forward, and grasping the uncertain hand,
exclaimed:

“Mrs. Churchill, here I am; Miss Overton. Let me lead you to a seat.”

It was a blithe, silvery-toned young voice, expressive of genuine
interest and sympathy for the poor blind woman, who did not refuse
Edna’s offered assistance, but held her hand, even after seated in her
chair.

“I am glad to welcome you, Miss Overton,” she said; “but am sorry you
had to walk. We did not know you were coming to-day. You must be very
tired.”

Edna assured her she was not; and then Mrs. Churchill continued:

“I cannot see you as distinctly as I wish I could, for I like to know
the faces of those I have about me. It is terrible to be blind!”

Her lip quivered as she said it, and instantly there awoke in Edna’s
bosom a feeling akin to love for this woman, who was her mother, in one
sense of the word, and before whom she knelt, saying cheerily:

“Let me come nearer to you, then. Perhaps you will get an idea of me. I
don’t mind your looking at me as long as you like.”

And Mrs. Churchill did look at the fresh young face held so close to her
own, and passed her hand over the mass of golden brown hair, and lifted
one of the heavy curls and held it to the light; then, with a gesture of
satisfaction, she said:

“There, that will do. I think I know tolerably well how you look. I
certainly know the feeling of your hands and hair. You are a little bit
of a girl, and Maude rightly named you _Dot_. She is at Oakwood now with
some young ladies from New York and a Mr. Heyford. They are having a
croquet party, and Roy is there too. Maude is croquet mad, I think.”

Suddenly it occurred to Mrs. Churchill that her guest might like to see
her room, and she arose, saying:

“I do not like being led; it implies too much helplessness; but I think
I shall not mind using you for my guide. I can lean on your shoulder
nicely. I am glad you are so short.”

The soft, white hand rested itself softly on Edna’s shoulder in a
caressing kind of way, and the two went slowly from the library and out
into the wide hall, through which blew the warm September wind, sweet
with the perfume of flowers it had kissed in its passage across the
garden. To Edna it seemed as if she had gained an entrance into
Paradise, as through either open door she caught glimpses of the
beautiful grounds, stretching away to the winding river in one direction
and back toward the Catskill hills in the other. Slowly up the long
flight of stairs they went, till they reached the hall above, and Mrs.
Churchill, pointing to a door, said:

“That is Roy’s room, and the one farther down, where the door is shut,
was Charlie’s, my other son, who died two years ago. Yours is this way,
opposite mine. I hope you will like it. Georgie Burton said it was all
right.”

They were in the room by this time, and with a cry of pleasure Edna
broke away from the hand on her shoulder, and running to the window,
from which the grounds, the river, and so many miles of country could be
seen, exclaimed:

“Oh, I like it so much! It is all like fairyland; and seems a dream that
I should ever be in a place like this! I hope I shall not wake and find
it so; that would be very dreadful!”

She was talking more to herself than to Mrs. Churchill, who nevertheless
said to her:

“Have you seen so hard times that this place should seem so desirable?”

“Not hard in one sense,” Edna said. “Almost everybody has been kind to
me; but—” she hesitated a moment, and Mrs. Churchill added:

“Yes, Maude told me you had lost all your nearest relatives; was in
black for your father, I think; but you have laid off mourning, I
imagine, from the color of your travelling suit; and I am glad, for I
would rather have you in bright colors. I am sure they suit you better,”
she said, laying her hand again on Edna’s shoulder, and asking if she
cared to dress for lunch; “because if you do not, there is no necessity,
as Roy lunches at Oakwood. He will be home to dinner, and some of the
young people may come with him.”

This brought to light the fact that Edna’s trunk was still at the
station, whither Mrs. Churchill immediately dispatched a servant for it;
then leaving Edna alone for a time, she bade her rest, and amuse herself
in any way she liked until lunch was ready.

It was a very delicate lunch, and served in the prettiest of rooms,
where the French windows opened upon a raised bed of bright flowers,
whose perfume filled the room, as did the delicious air of that soft
September day; and Mrs. Churchill was very kind and attentive to the
young girl sitting opposite her, and wondering if it could be herself,
there at last at Leighton Place, with only Charlie’s monument shining
through the distant evergreens to remind her that she was not the Miss
Overton she professed to be.

They went out to the grave that afternoon. It was a habit of Mrs.
Churchill’s to visit it every day, and she asked Edna to accompany her,
and leaned upon her as she went, and began talking to her of her poor
boy, who was killed.

It would be difficult to tell just what Edna’s emotions were as she
stood by Charlie’s grave, and read his name and age, cut deep into the
marble. Mrs. Churchill had taken a seat on an iron chair which stood
near by, and freed from her, Edna leaned heavily against the monument,
and felt for a moment as if she was suffocating. But she never lost a
word of what Mrs. Churchill was saying of her boy, or failed to observe
how sedulously any mention of Charlie’s wife was at first avoided. After
a little, however, Mrs. Churchill said:

“As you are to be one of the family, you cannot avoid hearing Roy or
some one speak of it, and I may as well tell you that Charlie left a
wife,—a young girl, to whom he had been married that very day. Edna was
her name; and they tell me she was pretty. I never saw her but once, and
then scarcely noticed her. We don’t know where she is. Roy cannot find
her. She is teaching school, and keeps her place of residence a secret
from us.”

“You must be sorry for that,” Edna replied. “It would be so pleasant to
have her with you,—a daughter is better than a stranger.”

“Yes, perhaps so,” Mrs. Churchill answered slowly; then, brightening a
little, she said: “I felt hard toward her at first, but I do not now;
and I think I should like once to see the girl Charlie loved and died
for before I am wholly blind.”

There was something so sad and touching in the tone with which Mrs.
Churchill said this, that Edna involuntarily walked swiftly to her side,
with the half-formed resolution to fall upon her knees, and cry out:
“Oh, mother! Charlie’s mother! I am she! I am Edna! Look at me! love me!
let me be your daughter!” But she restrained herself, and Mrs. Churchill
thought that the hand laid so softly upon her hair was put there from
sympathy only, and felt an increase of interest in this Miss Overton,
who was so kind, and gentle, and delicate in her attentions.

Mrs. Churchill liked to sit under the shadow of the evergreens, and they
staid an hour or more by Charlie’s grave, and then went slowly back to
the house.

It was near dinner-time, and Edna went at once to her room and commenced
her toilet for the evening. Mrs. Churchill had said that Roy would be
home to dinner, and probably bring some of the young people with him;
and Edna experienced a cold, faint feeling at her heart as she thought
of the ordeal before her, and tried to decide upon a dress appropriate
to the occasion. Her choice fell at last upon a soft gray tissue, which
had been made by Ruth Gardner’s mantua-maker, and praised by Ruth
herself as faultless. It was very becoming to Edna, for the brilliancy
of her complexion relieved the rather sober hue, while a bit of scarlet
geranium, which she fastened in her hair, heightened the effect.

“Will Roy recognize me, or that Miss Georgie Burton?” Edna asked herself
many times, and as often assured herself that they would not. “Roy
probably did not notice me specially in the car,” she thought; “while
that bruise on my forehead and my terrible agitation and distress must
have changed me so much, that Miss Burton will never dream I am the girl
she looked at with such virtuous wrath.”

There was scarcely a chance of detection except through the hair, and as
that, instead of falling negligently around her face and neck, was
brushed back from the forehead, and fell in masses of curls over a comb
at the back of the head, Edna felt but little fear, and awaited, with
some impatience, the return of Roy, hoping devoutly that Maude Somerton
would be one of those who might accompany him from Oakwood.

The table was laid in the dining-room, and the dinner was waiting to be
served, when down the avenue Edna caught the gleam of white dresses, and
heard the sound of merry voices as Roy and his party drew near.

In her dress of rich black silk, with a soft shawl wrapped around her,
Mrs. Churchill sat upon the piazza and kept Edna at her side, where she
commanded a good view of the approaching guests, her heart giving a
bound of joy as she recognized Maude Somerton, with Jack Heyford in
close attendance. A little in advance of them walked a tall, straight,
broad-shouldered man, whose manner proclaimed him the master, and who
Edna knew at once was Roy; scanning him so curiously as almost to forget
the brilliant woman at his side, who, if Roy bore himself like the
master, bore herself equally like the mistress of Leighton, and pointed
out to one of the party some fine views of the river and of the
mountains in the rear. They were all in high spirits, talking and
laughing and so absorbed in each other as not to see the two ladies
awaiting their approach, until Maude suddenly exclaimed:

“Jack! Jack! there is some one with Mrs. Churchill. It is, it surely is
little Dot!” and with her usual impetuosity Maude broke away from her
companions, and bounding up the gravel walk and the wide steps of the
piazza, caught Edna in her arms and nearly smothered her with kisses.

For an instant Jack’s heart throbbed quickly at sight of the girl he had
loved and lost, but Maude’s pretty, saucy speeches were ringing in his
ears, and his hand still burned with the touch of the soft, warm
fingers, which had so deftly and so gently extracted an ugly sliver from
his thumb, just before leaving Oakwood, and so the wave of memory passed
harmlessly over him; and when Roy, who with Georgie was looking at and
discussing the little figure in gray, said to him:

“Can that be Miss Overton?” he answered, “Yes, that is Miss Overton.”

Roy hastened his movements then, and ere Edna knew what she was about he
was shaking her hand, and looking down upon her in a curious, well-bred
way, which did not make her one-half as uneasy as did the bold,
prolonged stare which Miss Burton fixed upon her.

Maude introduced her as “Miss Overton, from Rocky Point,” and all bowed
politely to her, while Georgie, following Roy’s example, took her hand
and stood a moment looking at her, as if trying to solve some doubt or
mystery. Maude, who was watching her, and saw the look of perplexity on
her face, whispered, under her breath, “Old marplot, what if she should
recognize her!”

But if to Georgie there had come any faint remembrance of that awful
night on the prairie, and the little stunned, bewildered creature, whose
eyes had in them such a look of hopelessness and terror, she put it away
for the time, and gave no sign of what was passing in her mind.

It was Roy who took Edna in to dinner, and gave her a seat beside him,
and treated her with as much deference and attention as if she had been
an invited guest instead of the hired companion of his mother, who sat
at the opposite end of the table, with Georgie at her side, acting a
daughter’s part to the poor, half-blind lady.

They were very gay during dinner; and Edna, whose spirits brightened and
expanded in the atmosphere of kindness and good-breeding, joined in the
gayety; and her sweet-toned voice and silvery laugh at some of Maude’s
queer sayings, reached Mrs. Churchill’s ear more than once, and made her
at last speak of the stranger to Georgie.

“Miss Overton has a very musical voice,” she said; and Georgie, whose
ear had been constantly turned in the direction of Edna, and who,
without seeming to notice, knew exactly when Roy spoke to her, and how
much attention he was paying to her, answered indifferently:

“Yes, very much like a child’s voice. She seems a child too, in size, at
least.”

“Isn’t she very pretty?” was Mrs. Churchill’s next remark; and Georgie
replied:

“Yes, though rather too small and _petite_ to impress one very strongly.
There is something familiar in her face; and I should say she looked a
good deal like Mrs. Charlie Churchill.”

“Oh, I’m glad,” and Mrs. Churchill’s hands made a little rattling among
the china and silver, while her heart went out still more kindly toward
the young girl who resembled Charlie’s wife.

Georgie had not intended such a result, and she said no more of Miss
Overton, or her resemblance to Edna Churchill; and, as if inspired with
some new idea, she was very gracious to Edna, and after dinner was over,
and they had returned to the drawing-room, she took a seat beside her,
and questioned her minutely with regard to her journey and her home at
Rocky Point. Had she always lived there, and was it not a charming
place, with such delightful scenery?

“No, I have not always lived there. I was born in Ohio, and lived there
till my father died,” Edna replied, fully alive to the danger of letting
her interrogator too much into the history of her past life, and with a
suspicion that Georgie was really making her out.

But the home in Ohio threw Georgie off the track, and ere she could
resume it again Maude came to the rescue, bringing Roy with her, and
urging Edna to favor them with some music.

“I have told Mr. Leighton how divinely you sing,” Maude said, “and he is
anxious to judge for himself; so please, Dotty, don’t refuse.”

Edna, who knew herself that she could sing, thought it impolite to
refuse; and when Roy seconded Maude’s request, and offered to lead her
to the piano, she arose, and taking his arm walked the whole length of
the long drawing-room to the alcove or bay-window, where the piano was
standing. There was a mist before her eyes, and a visible trembling of
her hands as she took her seat upon the stool; and then, by way of
gaining time, pretended to turn over the sheets of music, as if in quest
of something familiar. But when Roy, who saw her agitation, bent over
her, and said so kindly and reassuringly, “Don’t be afraid, Miss
Overton. You have not a critical audience,—half of us don’t know one
tune from another,” she felt her courage coming back, and her voice
which, as she began to sing, trembled a little, soon gained strength and
confidence, until it filled the room with such rich melody as held every
listener silent, and made Mrs. Churchill brush away a tear or two, as
she thought of Charlie and his grave beneath the evergreens. Edna was
not permitted to stop with one song, but sang piece after piece, until
thoughtful Roy interfered in her behalf, and said it was wrong to urge
her further when he knew how tired she must be.

“Not that I could not listen to you all night, but it would be the fable
of the boys and the frogs over again,” he said, as he led her from the
piano and deposited her at his mother’s side.

“You have given me a great deal of pleasure, Miss Overton,” Mrs.
Churchill said; “and I thank you for it. I am very fond of singing; and
you have so sweet a voice. I shall often make demands upon it. I am glad
you are here.”

Mrs. Churchill, who seldom did anything by halves, had conceived a
strong liking for her little companion, and her, “I am glad you are
here,” was so hearty and sincere, that Edna felt her eyes filling with
tears, and wondered how she could ever have thought otherwise than
kindly of this woman at her side.

Meantime, at the farther end of the room, Roy and Georgie were
discussing the stranger and her style of singing.

“The sweetest voice I ever heard,” Roy said; “and I am glad, for it will
afford mother so much pleasure. I remember how delightedly she used to
listen to poor Charlie’s performance on his guitar when it almost drove
me crazy.”

“And that reminds me,” said Georgie, “that Miss Overton looks a little
like Charlie’s wife. Indeed, the resemblance struck me at first as very
strong. Wouldn’t it be a funny joke if it were Charlie’s wife in
disguise?”

“A joke I should hardly relish,” Roy replied; “for why should Edna come
here in disguise when she knows the door stands open to her at any
time?”

There was a lurking demon of evil in Georgie’s black eyes as they rested
upon Edna, sitting so quietly at Mrs. Churchill’s side, and looking so
young, and fresh, and innocent, and as she saw that her remark had
awakened no suspicion in Roy’s mind, she beckoned Jack to her side, and
asked him if Miss Overton did not resemble Mrs. Charlie Churchill enough
to be her sister.

“Why, no,” Jack replied, running his fingers through his hair, and
looking across at Edna. “I should not say she was her sister at all; and
still, there is something in the expression of Miss Overton’s mouth and
eyes like Mrs. Churchill’s, only not quite so sad and pitiful.”

Jack spoke naturally enough, and met his sister’s eyes without
flinching, but inwardly he chafed like a young tiger, and when next he
found himself alone with Maude, he said to her:

“Maude, Georgie has something in her mind which may mean mischief to
Edna; and if she questions you, as she probably will, and presses you
too close, tell her—” Jack hesitated a moment, and then continued: “Tell
her that if she wants her secret kept she must respect the secret of
others; in short, keep her tongue between her teeth.”

Maude, who was very shrewd and far-seeing, had more than once suspected
that there was something in Georgie’s early life which the world
generally did not know, and at Jack’s remark she looked quickly at him,
then nodded understandingly, while her mental comment was, “I knew there
was something about Georgie, and sometime I’ll find it out.”

While this little by-play was going on, Roy had walked to a point in the
room from which he could study Edna’s face without being himself
observed by her. Georgie’s remark had awakened no suspicion whatever,
but he felt more interested in one said to resemble his sister-in-law,
and he stood for several minutes looking at the young girl, and mentally
comparing her face with the one seen in the cars two and one-half years
ago. Whether there were a resemblance or not he could not tell, for the
face of the girl who had so sadly caricatured him and styled him a
Betty, was not very distinct in his mind. Edna was very small, and so
was Miss Overton, but he did not think his sister could be as beautiful
as this girl, whose movements he watched so closely. He had not expected
anything quite so fair and lovely in Miss Overton, and when at last, at
a whispered word from his mother, she rose and led that lady from the
room, he felt as if the brightness of the evening was suddenly clouded,
and something lost from his enjoyment.

Mrs. Churchill’s exit was soon followed by the departure of the young
people from Oakwood, and Roy was left alone with his thoughts more upon
his mother’s hired companion than upon poor Georgie, whose star seemed
to be waning, and whose heart, in spite of the lightness of her words
and manner, as she walked back to Oakwood, was throbbing with a feeling
nearly akin to hatred for the so-called Miss Overton, whom _she_ knew to
be Charlie Churchill’s widow.




                             CHAPTER XXIX.
                           GEORGIE’S SECRET.


Maude Somerton had thrown her hat down in one place, her gloves and
shawl in another, and donning her dressing-gown, stood by the open
window of her room at Oakwood, looking out upon the beauty of the night,
but thinking more of Jack and the words he said to her during their walk
from Leighton, than of the silvery moonlight which lay so calmly upon
the lawn below. They had lingered behind the others, and taken more time
by half an hour to reach Oakwood, than the rest of the party had done.
And Maude had been very quiet and gentle, and walked demurely at Jack’s
side, with her hand resting confidingly upon his arm, while he told her
first the story of his love for Edna Churchill; then of his comparative
poverty, and of the little crippled Annie, who must be his care as long
as she lived. The Heyford name was a good and honorable one, he said,
and never had been tarnished to his knowledge, and still there was in
the family a shadow of disgrace, the nature of which he could not
explain to her; he could only say that _he_ had had no part in it, and
it could by no means affect him or his future. Maude was morally certain
that Georgie was in some way connected with this “shadow of disgrace,”
but she made no comment, and listened while Jack asked her, if, knowing
what she did, she could consent to be his wife, and a sister to little
Annie, who suffered so much for want of other companionship than that of
old Luna, the colored woman, who kept his house for him.

There was a spice of coquetry about Maude Somerton; it was as natural
for her to flirt as it was to breathe, but there was something in honest
Jack Heyford’s manner which warned her that he was not the man to be
trifled with. She could play with silly Ned Bannister and drive him
nearly wild, and make even poor Uncle Phil Overton’s heart beat so fast,
that the old man, who was mortally afraid of heart disease, had applied
a sticking plaster to the region of inquietude, but she must be candid
with Jack. She must tell him yes or no, without qualification of any
kind, and so at last she answered “Yes,” and Jack, as he stooped to kiss
her upturned face, on which the moonlight was shining, felt as if Heaven
had suddenly opened to his sight, and let the glory through.

And thus they were betrothed, and they lingered for a few moments under
the shadow of the piazza at Oakwood, and whispered anew their vows of
love, and when Jack asked it of her, Maude put up her lips and kissed
his handsome face, and let her arm linger about his neck, and then
started back like a guilty thing, as the door came together with a bang,
and she heard the click of the key turning in the lock. It was Georgie
fastening up, but she opened the door again at Jack’s call, and looked
sharply into their faces as they passed her, but said nothing except, “I
supposed everybody was in.”

“Tell her, Maude,” Jack said, as he ran up the stairs to his room; while
Maude walked leisurely to her own chamber, in which there was a door
communicating with Georgie’s apartment.

The two girls never slept together, but frequently, when Maude was in a
very irrepressible mood, or Georgie unusually amiable and patronizing,
they visited each other and talked together while disrobing for the
night. Now, however, Maude felt more like communing with the moonlight
and whispering her happiness to the soft September wind, which just
lifted her bright hair as she leaned from the window, than talking with
her future sister-in-law, and she feigned not to hear the knock upon the
door and Georgie’s voice asking if she might come in. But when the knock
was repeated, and the voice had in it a note of impatience, she opened
the door, and Georgie came in, brush and comb in hand, with her long
black hair rippling over her crimson dressing-gown with its facings of
rich satin. Everything Georgie wore was of the most becoming as well as
expensive kind, and she made a very beautiful picture as she sat combing
and arranging her glossy curls under a silken net. But there was a
strange disquiet about her to-night, a feeling of unrest and vain
longing for the years gone forever, the time when she was as young, and
fresh, and pure as Maude Somerton or the girl at Leighton Place, who had
so disturbed her equanimity, and of whom she had come to speak to Maude.

She found it hard, however, to begin, but at last made the attempt by
saying:

“I say, Maude, what about that young lady at Leighton? Who is she; that
is, what is her real name?”

“Her real name?” and Maude opened her blue eyes wonderingly. “She is
Miss Louise Overton. You have known that all the time. Why do you ask me
so queer a question?”

“Maude, this will never do,” and Georgie’s eyes had a stony look in
them. “You pride yourself on ferreting out things, and you have not been
at Rocky Point with the _soi-disant_ Miss Overton so much for nothing.
_You_ know who she is, and I know too.”

“And pray who is she?” Maude asked, her cheeks flushing and her temper
beginning to give way.

“She was Edna Browning, and Charlie Churchill’s wife. My memory is not
so short that I have forgotten the girl at Iona, bruised and scratched
as she was then. I recognized her almost immediately, and I wonder at
her temerity in venturing to a place where she knew she would see me
more or less. Why did she come,—that is, why has she taken another name
than her own?”

There was no use for Maude to pretend ignorance any longer, and she
frankly replied:

“Her coming here was my own plan. The change of name was long ago, when
she first went to Rocky Point. Her uncle preferred and insisted that she
bear his name, and so she joined her second to it which made her ‘Louise
Overton.’ I want Roy and his mother to like her, and both, or rather
Mrs. Churchill is more likely to do this if she knows her first as a
stranger. Roy will like her any way; he cannot help it.”

Maude had made her explanation and waited for Georgie’s reply, which
was:

“I think less of the girl now than I did before, and so will Roy and his
mother when I tell them, as I shall.”

“Tell them,” Maude repeated, her blue eyes beginning to blaze with
anger; “tell them, Georgie! You certainly cannot intend anything as mean
as that! If Edna wishes to remain _incog._, can you not, as a woman,
respect her wishes, and keep her secret to yourself?”

“No; neither is it my duty to lend myself to the deception. I do not
pretend to be one of the good ones, as you do, but I am a lover of
truth, and should feel that I was acting a lie every time I addressed
that girl as Miss Overton, or heard her addressed as such. She has some
deep-laid design in what she is doing,—some design, which I shall take
immediate steps to frustrate. I shall go to Mrs. Churchill to-morrow,
and tell her who the girl is she has taken into such favor.”

Georgie paused here and went on brushing her glossy hair, while Maude,
who had been gathering all her forces for a grand onslaught and total
rout of the enemy, said calmly:

“That is your decision, is it?”

“Yes, that is my decision, from which nothing can turn me.”

“Then, Georgie, hear me,” and Maude came close to Georgie, and looking
her fully in the face, began: “You will not respect Edna Churchill’s
secret, and you talk grandly of being a lover of truth and hating to act
a lie. _Georgie, your whole life is a lie, and has been for years!_”

Maude spoke very slowly and kept her eyes fixed upon Georgie, over whose
face there crept a look of terror, and whose hands shook as they shed
back the mass of hair from her forehead, where drops of perspiration
were visible. In her excitement Maude had used rather stronger language
than Jack’s hint could warrant, but Georgie’s manner convinced her that
she could venture still further, and she continued:

“You have a secret, which you are guarding sedulously from the world,
but, Georgie, just so sure as you breathe a word to any one against
Edna, or tell that she is not Miss Overton, or try, in any way, to
prejudice either Roy or his mother, or anybody against her, just so sure
people shall know that little passage in your life which you have
hitherto succeeded in keeping from them. On the other hand, if you
respect Edna’s secret, yours too shall be respected, as it has been
heretofore. Do you acquiesce in this? Is it a bargain between us?”

There was no need for Georgie to answer; her white, terrified face, from
which her old assurance and haughtiness had fled, was a sufficient
reply; and she sat for a moment staring at her companion in utter
bewilderment. Then, with a tremendous effort, she recovered in part her
composure, and said:

“I do not know what right you have thus to threaten me, or what you may
have heard to my disadvantage from my enemies. I am not afraid of _you_,
Maude, or of what you can do to harm me. Don’t think I am, I beg; but if
it’s any favor to _you_ or Jack, for I know he has something to do with
it, I will let the girl remain in peace at Leighton, only devoutly
hoping that the childish face which lured poor Charlie Churchill to his
death will not also be the ruin of my brother, whose _penchant_ in that
direction I very strongly suspect.”

“Spare your suspicions there,” Maude said, and her voice was gentler
now.

She had conquered Georgie wholly, and she began to feel a kind of pity
for the proud woman who had been so terribly humbled, and who hereafter
would inevitably stand somewhat in fear of her.

“Georgie,” she continued, “I have no wish to quarrel with you. I loved
Edna Churchill before I knew who she was. You will like her, too, when
you know her better, but she will never be your sister. Don’t fear for
that, though Jack _did_ love her once, and asked her to be his wife, up
at Rocky Point last summer, and she refused him; and now the great,
kind-hearted fellow has come to me to be consoled, and, Georgie, well,—I
may as well tell you, for he said I might,—I am to be your sister some
day, and I do not want to begin by quarrelling with you; I mean to make
Jack a good wife and be a mother to little Annie; he told me about her,
and I almost cried with thinking of the poor creature, sitting all day
in her chair or lying in her crib so lonely, talking sometimes to
herself, he said, and sometimes to you, for company, and again praying
that Jesus will make her patient to bear the pain in her back and hip,
which is dreadful at times. Yes, I mean to be kind to her, even if I
worry Jack’s life out of him. Speak to me, Georgie, and say if you are
glad I am to be your sister?”

Maude had offered her hand to Georgie, over whom a curious change had
passed. The expression of fear was gone, and as Maude talked of Annie,
there came a softer look into her face, and grasping Maude’s offered
hand, she burst into such a passionate fit of weeping and bitter
sobbing, that Maude, forgetting all her anger, knelt down beside her,
trying to soothe and quiet her, and asking what was the matter, and if
she had offended her.

“I did not want you to tell of Edna,” she said, “and I was harsh-with
you about that; but, Georgie, I want to like you, and you must like me,
for Jack’s sake, if nothing else.”

“I do, I will,” Georgie gasped; “but Maude, oh, Maude, why did you open
a grave I had thought closed forever? I am glad you are to be Jack’s
wife,—glad for him, and glad for Annie. She will have a mother in you, I
know, and may God deal with you and yours as you deal with her; oh, my
darling, my darling!”

In her excitement Georgie said more than she would otherwise have done,
and with that passionate cry, “my darling, oh, my darling,” she seemed
suddenly to recollect herself, and, wresting her hand from Maude, she
rose up swiftly and went back to her own room, leaving Maude more
perplexed and confounded, and more kindly disposed toward Georgie withal
than she had ever been in her life.

“I have sealed her lips with regard to Edna,” she thought, “but I have
wounded her cruelly somewhere. How she did cry about that little Annie,
and what can the secret be that just the mention of it affects her so
much?”

But wonder as she would, Maude was very far from the truth, and never
dreamed of the cloud resting upon the woman, who in the next room sat
with her head bowed down under a load of so bitter shame and
humiliation, that it seemed as if she never again could lift it up as
proudly and assuredly as she had done before. The world was very dark to
Georgie then, and more evils than one seemed to be threatening her.
Maude knew her secret, in part, if not in whole,—knew enough, at least,
to blast her good name with Roy, should she dare to breathe a hint
against Miss Overton. Her hands were tied in that direction, and when
she remembered the admiring glances she had seen Roy give to Edna, and
thought of all the opportunities he would have of seeing and knowing,
ay, and of _loving_ her, too, she writhed with pain, feeling an almost
certain presentiment that this young girl, whom from the first she had
to a certain degree felt to be her evil genius, had at last come between
her and that for which she had waited and hoped so long. Purer, better
thoughts, too, were stirring in Georgie’s heart,—thoughts of little
Annie, to whom Maude was to be a mother.

“And I am glad,” she whispered; “for I know she will be kind to Annie,
and, for Jack’s sake, will keep my miserable secret. Oh, that I should
ever have come to this, when a word from a weak girl can turn me from my
purpose! Yet so it is, and Edna Browning is safe; but, heavens! how I
hate her!”

Georgie’s demon was possessing her again, and her black eyes blazed with
passion as she thought of Edna Browning; but she could not do her harm,
and she must pretend to like her, through her great fear of Maude, whom
she felt as if she hated, too, until she remembered Annie; and then
there came a gush of tears, which cooled her feverish passion, and made
her more humble and subdued, as in her velvet slippers she paced the
floor noiselessly, until she heard a distant clock striking the hour of
two.

There was to be a croquet party at Leighton on the morrow, and knowing
how mental agitation and loss of sleep told upon her looks, Georgie
ceased her rapid walking, and bathing her flushed face profusely with
water, crept shivering to bed, and by a strong effort of the will, such
as but few can practise, she succeeded in quieting her nerves, and slept
peacefully at last.




                              CHAPTER XXX.
                              AT LEIGHTON.


It was a very pretty picture which greeted Roy’s vision next morning,
when, at an earlier hour than usual, he arose and sauntered out into the
garden, glancing involuntary toward Miss Overton’s window, and noticing
that it was open, but seeing no signs of its owner near it. Edna was in
the garden before him, gathering a bouquet for the breakfast table, and
looking so fresh, and bright, and beautiful, with the flush of early
girlhood upon her face, and the deep peace shining in her brown eyes,
that Roy felt his pulse beat faster as he approached her and passed the
compliments of the morning.

“You are an early riser,” he said, “and your cheeks show the good
effects of it; they are almost as bright as the rose in your hand.”

“The fates forbid. So high a color as that would be vulgar, you know,”
Edna replied, laughing back at him, and then continuing: “Perhaps you
think me a trespasser, or even worse, a thief; but I assure you I am
neither. Mrs. Churchill told me yesterday to gather flowers whenever I
liked, and I thought the breakfast table might be improved with a
bouquet. I always used to get one for Uncle Phil, when I could.”

Roy hastened to reassure her; and then, as he saw her trying to reach a
spray which grew too high for her, he pulled it down himself, and in so
doing scattered a few drops of dew upon her uncovered head; very
carefully he brushed them off, noting, as he did so, the luxuriance of
the golden brown hair, and the clear coloring of the neck and brow, and
thinking to himself what a dainty little creature she was, and that
Leighton was a great deal pleasanter for having her there. She was an
enthusiastic admirer of everything beautiful, both in nature and art,
and the grounds at Leighton filled her with delight, and she said out
what she felt, while her eyes sparkled and shone, and almost dazzled Roy
with their brilliancy, when, as was often the case, they were turned
upward to his for assent to what she was saying. The gravel walks were
still wet, and glancing down at Edna’s feet, Roy saw that the little
boots showed signs of damp, and stopped her suddenly.

“You are wetting your feet, Miss Overton,” he said. “Let me go for your
overshoes, and then I will take you around the grounds. It is a full
hour before breakfast time, and mother will not need you till then.”

Edna was not at all averse to the walk, but she preferred getting her
own overshoes, and ran back to the house for them, while Roy stood
watching her and thinking how lithe and graceful she was, and that she
must by birth and blood belong to the higher class; and then he thought
of Edna, whom Georgie had said Miss Overton resembled, and wondered if
she were half as pretty, and graceful, and bright as this young girl who
seemed to have taken his fancy by storm. We say _fancy_, because if any
one had then hinted to Roy Leighton that he was more interested in Miss
Overton than men like him are usually interested in young ladies whom
they have only known for twenty-four hours, he would have laughed at the
idea, and if questioned closely, would have acknowledged to himself at
least, that far down in his heart was an intention of ultimately
marrying Georgie Burton. He rather owed it to her that he should make
her his wife sometime, he thought; her name had been so long associated
with his, and his mother was so fond of her; and knowing this of
himself, he felt almost as if he were already a married man, and as
such, could admire Miss Overton as much as he pleased. She was coming
towards him now, her hat in her hand, and as she walked swiftly, her
curls were blown about her face by the morning wind, recalling
involuntarily to Roy’s mind that scene in the cars more than two years
ago, and the picture of himself in the poke bonnet, which he carefully
preserved. But Roy had no suspicion that the face confronting him was
the same which had looked so saucily and curiously at him in the railway
car, and had, with its witching beauty, been the means, through
Providence, of that early grave toward which they were walking, and
where poor Charlie slept. There was a shadow on Edna’s face as they
approached it, and when the gate to the entrance was reached, she
stopped involuntarily, and laid her hand upon the iron railing.

“My brother’s grave,” Roy said, standing close to her side.

“Yes; your mother told me. I was here with her yesterday,” Edna replied,
hoping thus to prevent Roy from talking to her of Charlie.

She had felt guilty and mean when listening to Mrs. Churchill; and she
should feel tenfold more guilty and mean, she thought, and find it
harder work keeping quiet, if Roy, too, should tell her of his brother
and his brother’s wife. But Roy did tell her of them, and talked a good
deal of Edna, _his sister_, whom he had never seen but once.

“Miss Burton tells me you resemble her,” he said; “and that may be the
reason why you seem so little like a stranger to me. I should be so glad
to know Edna,—to have her here at home. Poor girl! I am afraid she is
finding the world a harsh one, struggling alone as she is!”

He spoke so kindly that Edna had hard work to refrain from crying out:
“Mr. Leighton, I am a liar, a cheat, an impostor! I am not what I seem.
I am Edna, and not Miss Overton.”

But she did not do it; and when at last she spoke, it was to ask if Mrs.
Charlie Churchill had no friends or relatives, that she should be thus
thrown upon her own resources.

“Yes; she has an aunt,—a Miss Jerusha Pepper, whose name is something of
an index to her character,” Roy said; and then, as there came up before
his mind the picture of Aunt Jerry, as he first saw her, bending over
her boiling caldron, and looking more like Macbeth’s witches than a
civilized woman, he broke into a low, merry laugh, which brought a flush
to Edna’s face, for she guessed of what he was thinking.

She had heard from Aunt Jerry herself of Roy’s visit to Allen’s Hill,
and how he had found her employed.

“Dressed in my regimentals, and looking like the very evil one himself!”
Aunt Jerry had written. And Edna, who knew _what_ the “regimentals”
were, and how her aunt looked in them, wondered what Roy thought of her,
and if she herself had not fallen somewhat in his estimation. She knew
he was laughing at some reminiscence connected with that soap-making in
the lane; and she could not forbear asking him if just the thoughts of
Miss Jerusha were sufficient to provoke his risibles.

“Well, yes,” Roy answered; “I always laugh when I think of her arrayed
in the most wonderful costume you ever saw, I reckon, and deep in the
mysteries of soap-making. And still, no queen ever bore herself more
proudly than she did, as she tried to feign indifference to her own
attire and my presence.

“It was a pleasant enough place, or might be, with young people in it,
though I fancy Edna must have led a dreary life there, and was thus more
easily led to escape from it. Still, I am not certain, that in doing so,
she has not proved, in her own experience, the truth of Scylla and
Charybdis.”

“Oh, no; I am sure she has not!” Edna exclaimed, so vehemently that for
a moment Roy looked curiously at her, noticing how flushed, and eager,
and excited she looked, and wondering at it.

Then suddenly there came to him the remembrance of Georgie’s words:
“Wouldn’t it be funny if this Miss Overton should prove to be Edna in
disguise?” and without at all believing that it was so, he resolved upon
a test which should at once decide the matter, and put to rest any
doubts which might hereafter arise.

Just across a little plat of grass Russell was busily employed with a
clump of dahlias, and thither Roy turned his steps, with Miss Overton at
his side.

Russell had seen Edna in Iona, and Roy had heard him say that he never
forgot a face; so he stood talking to him several minutes, professing a
great interest in the dahlias, but really watching him closely as he
bowed very gravely to the young lady, and then resumed his work.

Edna had thought of Russell, and dreaded him as the possible means of
her being detected; but in his case, as in Georgie’s, she trusted that
the change in her dress and the style of wearing her hair, and the
expression of her face from one of terror and distress to peace and
happiness, would effectually prevent recognition. Georgie evidently had
not recognized her, and Russell certainly would not; so she stood
quietly before him, seeming in no haste whatever to get away, and even
asked him some questions about a new variety of dahlia which she had
never before seen.

For once Russell’s memory was at fault, for he did not know her; though
he pronounced her a trim, neat sort of craft, as he stood for a moment
watching her, as she walked away with Roy, who led her down a grassy
lane toward the little cottage, where she had once thought to move him
and his mother.

There was a half-sad, half-amused smile on Edna’s face, as she recalled
the days of her delusion, and looked at the cottage overgrown with ivy,
where one of Roy’s men was living, and with whom he stopped a moment to
speak about a piece of work. It was nearly breakfast time now; and the
two walked slowly back to the house, where Mrs. Churchill sat waiting
for them in the cosey breakfast-room. The flowers Edna had gathered were
upon the table; and Roy thought how bright they made everything look,
and enjoyed his breakfast as he had not done for many a day. It was
pleasant to have a young face opposite to him; pleasant to have a young
life break up the monotony of his own; and Leighton Place seemed to him
just now as it never had before; and, during the morning, while Miss
Overton was engaged with his mother, he found himself thinking far more
of her than of the croquet party which Georgie had planned, and which
was to come off that afternoon.




                             CHAPTER XXXI.
                            OVER AT OAKWOOD.


Mr. Burton, of whom little has been said, was not a very frequent
visitor at his own house in the country. He liked the dust, and heat,
and noise of Wall street better than the green fields, and the tall
mountains, and cool river, which encircled his country home in Oakwood.
So the house on Madison Square was always kept open for him, and two or
three servants retained to keep it, and there he slept, and ate his
solitary meals, and lived his solitary life, while Mrs. Burton and
Georgie were away enjoying the good which money and position can buy.

Occasionally, however, there came over him a desire for a change, and
then he packed his valise, and took the cars or boat for Oakwood,
usually surprising its inmates, who, never knowing when to look for him,
were seldom expecting him. He had come up from New York thus suddenly
the very morning after Georgie’s interview with Maude, and announced his
intention of spending the entire day, and possibly remaining over until
the morrow, provided there was anything worth staying for.

“Oh, there is! There’s the croquet party at Leighton Place this
afternoon, and you’ll go, and I’ll have you on my side, because you are
capital at a long shot,” Maude Somerton said, hanging about her uncle’s
chair, and evincing far more delight at seeing him than his wife had
done.

Mrs. Burton was a very good woman, and a very proper woman. She always
kissed her husband when he came to Oakwood, and when he went away, and
inquired how he was, and how the servants were getting on, and asked for
three or five hundred dollars, as the case might be, and deferred to him
in a highly respectful manner, pleasant to behold. But she never hurried
out to meet him as Maude was wont to do, nor threw her arms around his
neck, nor smoothed the thin hair from his tired brow, nor said how glad
she was to have him there.

Maude loved him as the uncle of her mother and the only father she had
ever known, and almost the only heart-beats of affection the business
man had felt in many a year, were called up by the touch of Maude’s lips
to his and the clinging of her soft fingers about his own. So, though he
hated croquet and could see no sense in knocking about a few wooden
balls, he consented to join the party; and then remembering that he had
not seen Georgie yet, he asked where she was.

Georgie had a violent headache, and toast and tea had been carried to
her room, and Mrs. Burton had been sitting with her when her husband
came in, and reading her a letter received that morning from a man of
high standing in Boston, who asked Mrs. Burton’s consent to address her
daughter.

It was an eligible offer enough, and but for one obstacle Georgie would
have thought twice before rejecting it, for she knew better than any one
else how fast her youth was fleeting. That obstacle was the genuine
liking she had for Roy, and the hope that she might yet be fortunate
enough to win him.

Never until this morning had she felt so much like talking freely with
her aunt of her future, and her growing fear lest, after all her years
of waiting, Roy Leighton should eventually be lost to her.

Nervous and weak from the effects of last night’s interview with Maude,
and the headache from which she was suffering, she could only bury her
face in her pillow and cry when her aunt read the would-be-lover’s
letter, and asked what answer she should return.

“I had hoped to see you settled at Leighton ere this, but Roy does not
seem as much inclined that way as he did some time ago,” Mrs. Burton
remarked.

And then the whole story came out, and Mrs. Burton understood just how
passionately her niece loved Roy Leighton; and how galling to her pride
it was to have had her name coupled with his so long, without any
apparent result.

Mrs. Burton was roused, and resolved at once to strike a decisive blow.
Roy had no right to play “fast and loose” with Georgie, as he certainly
had done. Everybody supposed they were engaged, and he had given them
reason to think so, and done enough to warrant Georgie in suing him for
breach of promise if she would stoop so low as that, as of course she
would not.

Mrs. Burton was not one to expose herself or family to public ridicule.
What she did would be done quietly and with no chance of detection from
the world, and she at once set herself to it, thinking it surely was a
Providence which sent her lord home on that particular day. Kissing
Georgie affectionately, and bidding her to think no more of the Boston
match or of Roy either, as it was sure to come right, she sought her
husband, and found him in the library with Maude, who had been telling
him of her engagement with Jack Heyford, and whose face was suffused
with blushes when her aunt came in.

Of course Mrs. Burton had to be told also, and she behaved very
properly, and kissed Maude twice, and said she had done well; that Mr.
Heyford, though poor, was a very estimable young man, and a brother of
Georgie. This last was evidently his chief recommendation to the lady
whose infatuation with regard to Georgie was something wonderful.

It was not Mrs. Burton’s way to skirt round a thing or to hesitate when
a duty was to be performed; but on this occasion she did feel a little
awkward, and after Maude was gone stood a moment uncertain how to begin.
At last, as if it had just occurred to her, she said:

“Maude’s engagement reminds me to tell you that Georgie has just
received through me an offer from that young Bigelow of Boston, whom you
may remember having seen at Saratoga last summer.”

Mr. Burton was very anxious to resume the paper he had been reading,
when Maude came asking an interview; but he was too thoroughly polite to
do that with his wife standing there talking to him, and so he answered
her:

“Maude first and Georgie next, hey? We are likely to be left alone, I
see. Does he belong to the genuine Bigelow race?”

“Yes,—the genuine. You must remember him,—he drove those handsome bays,
and his mother sat at our table, and said Georgie was the most beautiful
girl at Saratoga.”

“Georgie better take him, then, by all means,—she is growing older every
day,” was Mr. Burton’s reply, as he rattled his paper ominously, and
glanced at the “stock” column.

“But Georgie don’t want him,” Mrs. Burton rejoined, “and she does want
some one else,—some one, too, who has given her every reason to believe
he intended making her his wife, and who ought to do so.”

Mr. Burton looked up inquiringly, and his wife continued:

“I mean Roy Leighton. His name has been associated with Georgie’s for
years, and at times he has been very devoted to her, and almost at the
point of a proposal, then some interruption would occur to prevent it.
His mother’s heart is set upon it, and so, I must confess, is mine;
while Georgie’s,—well, the poor girl is actually sick with suspense and
mortification, and I think it is time something was done.”

Mrs. Burton was considerably heated by this time, and took a seat near
her husband, who asked what she proposed doing.

“Nothing myself, of course,—a woman’s lips are sealed; but you can and
ought to move in the matter. As Georgie’s father, it is your right to
ask what Roy’s intentions are, making Mr. Bigelow’s offer, of course,
the reason for your questionings. You are going to the croquet party
this afternoon,—you can, if you try, find an opportunity for speaking to
Roy alone, and I want you to do so.”

At first Mr. Burton swore he wouldn’t. Roy Leighton knew what he was
about, and if he wanted Georgie he would say so without being nudged on
the subject. It was no way to do, and he shouldn’t do it.

This was his first reply; but after awhile, during which his spouse grew
very earnest and eloquent, and red in the face, and called him “Freeman
Burton,” he ceased to say he wouldn’t, and said instead, that “he’d
think about it.”

And he did think about it all the morning, and the more he thought the
more averse he grew to it, and the more, too, he knew he would have to
do it, or never again know a moment’s peace when under the same roof
with his wife.

“I wish to goodness I had staid in New York,—and I’ve half a mind to
take the next train back,—upon my word I have; but then wife would
follow me if I did, and hang on till I consented. She never gives up a
thing she’s set her heart upon; and if she’s made up her mind that Roy
must marry Georgie, he’s bound to do it, and I must be the ‘go-between.’
I believe I’ll drown myself!”

The poor man fairly groaned as he finished his soliloquy, and glanced
from the window toward the river winding its way down the valley. His
peace of mind for that day was destroyed, and not even Maude’s
blandishments had power to brighten him up as he sat in a brown study,
wondering “what the deuce he should say to Roy, and how he should
begin.”

The party was not to assemble at Leighton until half-past three, and so
he had a long time in which to arrange his thoughts,—longer indeed than
he desired, and he was glad when at last the time came for him to start.

Maude, who seemed to be mistress of ceremonies, had been unusually quiet
and reserved during the morning, but when at lunch her uncle formally
announced to the guests at Oakwood her recent engagement with Jack, she
became at once her old self, and entered heart and soul into the
preparations for the party.

She had visited Georgie in her room, and kindly offered to bathe her
head, or do anything which could in any way alleviate the pain.

Of the events of the last night not a word was said, and both felt that
one page at least of that interview was turned forever. Maude, who had
nothing to fear, was the more natural of the two, and talked freely of
the croquet party at Leighton, and wished so much that Georgie could go.

“Perhaps you can,” she said, “if you keep very quiet. Your headaches do
not usually last the entire day.”

But this was no ordinary case, and when the time came for the party to
start, Georgie, though better, and able to sit up, declared herself too
weak and nervous to dress for the occasion, and so they went without
her, poor Mr. Burton lagging a little behind with his wife, who was very
kindly instructing him as to the better way of opening the conversation
with poor, unsuspicious Roy.




                             CHAPTER XXXII.
                           THE CROQUET PARTY.


There was not a finer croquet lawn in the neighborhood than that at
Leighton Place, nor one with which so much pains had been taken. It was
in shape, a long oval, bordered with low box, which prevented the balls
from rolling off the limits, and surrounded entirely with a broad gravel
walk, shaded by tall maples and evergreens, with rustic chairs and seats
beneath, and here and there statuettes, and urns filled with luxuriant
vines, and the shrubs which thrive best in the shade. At a little
distance, the musical waters of a fountain were heard, as they fell into
the basin, where golden fish were playing, while patches of bright
flowers dotting the turf heightened the general effect, and made it one
of the most delightful of resorts. Edna had almost screamed aloud, when,
after breakfast was over, Roy took her there with his mother, who,
though she never played, enjoyed nothing better than sitting in her
favorite chair, and listening to the click of the balls, and the merry
shouts which followed a lucky hit.

“Suppose, Miss Overton, that you and Roy try a game while I rest,” she
said to Edna, while Roy rejoined:

“Yes, do; then I can judge of your skill, and know whether to chose you
first this afternoon. Miss Somerton and I are to be captains, I
believe.”

Edna had frequently played at Rocky Point; sometimes with Maude,
sometimes with Ruth Gardner, and sometimes with Uncle Phil for an
opponent, and except when playing against the latter, was generally
beaten, so she took the mallet Roy brought to her with some hesitation,
declaring her inability to interest a skilful player, much less to beat.

“Let me teach you then,” Roy said. “You can learn a great deal in an
hour.”

To this Edna readily assented, and the game began with Roy as teacher.
But Edna soon found that the uneven ground at Uncle Phil’s, where the
balls hid themselves in all sorts of holes and depressions, was a very
different thing from the closely-shaven lawn which had been rolled and
pounded until it was nearly as smooth as a carpeted floor. She could
play here, and was astonished at her own success, and struck so boldly
and surely, that Roy soon gave up the task of teaching her, and began to
look after his own interests. She was such a little creature, and he so
tall and big, that he almost felt as if playing with his daughter,
though never did a father watch the motions of his child with just the
same feelings with which Roy watched Edna as she moved from point to
point, now showing her dimpled hands, and now poising her little boot
upon her ball preparatory to croqueting it away. She was very lithe,
very graceful, and very modest withal, and she beat Roy twice out of
five games, and when at last they were through, and Roy led her to his
mother, he said to her, laughingly:

“Remember you are engaged to me for the first game.”

He was extremely kind and gentle, and though Edna had known him
personally for only twenty-four hours, she had seen enough to understand
just how thoroughly good and noble he was; how different from Charlie,
who, had he lived, could hardly have satisfied her now. But Charlie was
dead, and she went from the croquet ground to his grave, with his
mother, and laid a cluster of flowers upon the sod which covered him,
and felt like a guilty hypocrite when Mrs. Churchill pressed her hand
and thanked her “for remembering my poor boy.”

“I would like flowers put here every day,” she said; “but my eyesight is
so bad that I cannot see, while Roy’s hands are not skilful in
fashioning bouquets, and we have had no young lady staying here
permanently until now.”

“Charlie shall have flowers so long as they last,” Edna replied with a
trembling voice, while into her face there came a look of pain something
like what it had worn on that dreadful night in Iona.

She had called him “Charlie,” and the old familiar name carried her back
to the Seminary days, when, aside from Aunt Jerry, she had not known
what sorrow was,—and she was uncertain how Mrs. Churchill would take it.
There was something very sad in the tone of her voice as she uttered the
name, Charlie,—_pitiful_, Mrs. Churchill thought; and she deepened her
grasp on Edna’s hand and said, “Call him Charlie always when speaking of
him to me. It makes it seem as if you had known him, and I can talk more
freely to you than to a stranger. He was my baby, my poor boy; full of
faults, but always loving and kind to his mother. Oh! Charlie, my
darling. I wish I had him back. I wish he had not done so.”

The tears were pouring over the poor woman’s face, and Edna’s kept
company with them. She knew what the mother wished he had not done, and
knew that but for her he would not have done it, and she felt for a few
moments as if she were really guilty of Charlie’s death; and could she
then have restored him to his mother by going herself back to the house
by the graveyard, and taking up her lonely life as it had been before
she knew Charlie Churchill, she would have done so. But there was no
going back when once death had entered in; and all she now could do was
to comfort and love the helpless woman who clung to her so confidingly,
and who seemed so much afraid of overtaxing or wearying her out.

“You have always been in school, I hear,” she said, after they had
returned to the house, and Edna had read aloud to her awhile. “Teaching
must be accompanied with more excitement than sitting here and amusing
me, so I shall not tax you much at first, lest you get tired of me. Go,
now, and enjoy yourself where you like. Perhaps Roy will take you to
drive. I’ll ask him; I hear his step now. Roy, come here, please.”

And before Edna, who did not fancy being thrust upon Roy whether he
would have her or not, could interfere, Mrs. Churchill had asked her son
why he did not take Miss Overton for a drive, and he had expressed
himself as delighted to do so. They were not gone long, for Roy had some
matters to attend to before dinner, which was that day to be served at
two, but during a _tête-à-tête_ of an hour a young man and woman can
learn a great deal of each other, and Roy’s verdict with regard to Miss
Overton, as he handed her out of his phaeton, was “A very bright,
fascinating girl, with something about her which interests me
strangely;” while Edna would not allow herself to put into words _what_
she thought of him. He was something, as she had judged him to be from
his letters, though better, she thought, and, as many a person had done
before her, she wondered that he had lived to the age of thirty without
being married. She did not now believe implicitly in his eventually
making Miss Burton his wife. He could not be happy with her, she
thought,—they were so dissimilar; and she unconsciously found herself
extracting comfort from that fact, though she ascribed her motive wholly
to the friendly interest she felt in Roy, and as she dressed herself for
dinner, she warbled a part of an old love tune she had not sung since
the days when Charlie Churchill used to stop by the Seminary gate to
listen to her singing.

“I am nothing but a hired companion, a ‘school marm,’ as that prig of a
Jim Gardner said of me when he first came home from Germany, and of
course these grand people from Oakwood have a similar opinion of me. I
saw it in that Miss Shawe’s eyes, and so it is not much matter how I
dress. Still I want to look as well as I can,” she said, as she stood
before the glass arranging her hair and wondering what she should wear.
“Maude says there is everything in one’s looks when playing croquet,”
she continued, “and perhaps she is right. I’ll wear my white pique, with
the little blue jacket.”

She could not have chosen a more becoming costume, for the jacket was of
that peculiar shade of blue which set off, her fair complexion to the
best advantage, and made her so pretty that Mrs. Churchill, blind as she
was, remarked upon her dress when she came in to dinner, while Roy said
she was like a bit of blue sky in June.

“You remember your engagement to play with me, of course,” he continued;
and when Edna suggested that she might be a detriment rather than a help
to his side, he replied, “I want the best-looking ones at any rate, so
that I can boast of beauty if not of skill. You and Miss Burton will go
nicely together.”

Edna did not relish her dinner quite as well after that speech, which
showed that Roy claimed Miss Burton as something which by right belonged
to him, and much as she despised herself for it, she knew, that,
inwardly, she had a feeling of relief when the party from Oakwood
arrived, and reported Georgie as too sick to come with them. Roy said he
was very sorry, and looked as if he meant it, and asked some questions
about her as he led the way to the lawn where everything was ready.
Maude, who was resplendent in white muslin, scarlet sash, and tall
gaiters, seized at once upon Edna, and, drawing her aside, whispered to
her of her happiness.

“He told me of his love for you, too, and I did not like him one bit the
less. He couldn’t help loving you, of course, when he saw you so
helpless and alone. He is a splendid fellow, isn’t he? Most as
good-looking as Roy, and he is going to quit tobacco, and fit my room
all up with blue, and we are to be married sometime next year if he is
prosperous, and I won’t have to teach the hot, sweating children any
more. Oh, I am so happy. There he comes now. Hasn’t he such a good
face?”

And Maude beamed all over with delight as Jack came up and joined them,
his eyes kindling, and growing very soft and tender, as Edna offered him
her congratulations, and told him how glad she was.

“I knew you would be,” he said. “Knew Maude would suit you better than
any one else; and Edna, please remember that our home is yours also
whenever you choose to make it so. Maude and I agreed upon that this
morning.”

They had reached the lawn by this time, and the ladies from New York
were handling the mallets daintily, and decrying their own skill, and
saying the side which claimed them was sure to lose.

“Then I run no risk,” Roy said, laughingly; “and choose Miss Overton.”

He had been drawing cuts with Maude to see which would have the first
choice, and the lot came to him.

“Miss Overton,” he called again, and Edna came forward, noticing, as she
did so, the glances of surprise and dissatisfaction exchanged between
the city girls, who, though very civil to her, did not attempt to
conceal that they knew her only as a hired companion, whose rightful
place was at Mrs. Churchill’s side, rather than in the ranks with
themselves as Roy Leighton’s first choice.

Maude wanted to choose Jack first, but modesty forbade, and then, too,
he sometimes made awful hits, and had a way of pursuing a ball, no
matter where it was or into what enemy’s quarter it took him. Jack was
out of the question, and so she chose Uncle Burton, and Roy took Jack
himself. Two of the New York girls came next, and the New York beau, and
then the number was complete, and Miss Agatha Shawe and Beatrice Bradley
retired in dignified silence, and taking seats by Mrs. Churchill,
prepared to criticise the game. It was Roy’s first play, and he drove
his ball through the third wicket and in the vicinity of the fourth,
while Maude, who usually struck so surely, started badly, and only made
her second arch.

Miss Agatha, who was reporting to Mrs. Churchill, and whose sympathies
were on Maude’s side, said a little sarcastically:

“She is in no danger from her opponent, I fancy; Miss Overton plays
next.”

Edna heard the remark, and while it sent the blood to her face, it
seemed to lend steadiness to her hand and coolness to her judgment, and
her first stroke was through both of the wickets, while a shout went up
from Roy and Jack, and was echoed by Maude, who, knowing that the city
ladies looked upon Edna and herself as people belonging to the working
class, rejoiced at her friend’s success even though it should tell
against her side. And it did tell sadly, for remembering Roy’s teaching
in the morning, Edna used her opponent’s ball so skilfully as to reach
the stake before stopping at all. But there she missed her stroke, and
came back to her place by Roy, who commended her highly, while Miss
Agatha began to change her tactics, and “guessed Miss Overton had played
before.”

Poor Mr. Burton was awkwardness itself. With the dread of talking to Roy
before him, he hardly saw his ball, and made a “booby” of himself at
once, and said to Maude, as he knocked his unlucky ball back to its
place: “I told you so. I can’t play any more than an elephant.”

But he was good at long shots, as Maude had said, and he did some long
shooting before he was through, for the game was a hotly-contested one.
Maude recovered her skill with her second round, while Edna lost a
little by being so constantly pursued by the city girl, who played the
best, and who shared Miss Agatha’s contempt for the plebeian. But Roy
beat; and then they chose again, and Maude took Edna first, and Edna’s
side was always the winning one, until Miss Agatha suggested that “Miss
Overton should play on both sides, and see what the result would be.”

But Roy said Miss Overton was too tired to do that; besides, it was
nearly time for refreshments; the servants were arranging the tables
now; and he suggested that, for a time, they should rest, and go
wherever they pleased. That broke up the group, which divided up in twos
and threes, Maude walking away with Jack, Edna returning to Mrs.
Churchill’s side, and the city people making a little knot by
themselves, under one of the tall shade-trees.

Mr. Burton was thus left alone; seeing which, Roy asked him to go and
look at a fast horse which he had recently purchased, and which was
accounted by connoisseurs of horse-flesh a very fine animal. And so it
came about that, after the horse had been duly examined and admired, Roy
found himself alone with Mr. Burton in a little rustic arbor, apart from
all the rest of his guests, and where he could not well be seen, as the
arbor was hidden from the greater part of the grounds by the evergreens
which grew so thickly around it.

Now was Mr. Burton’s opportunity. He had planned admirably to get Roy
into this retired situation, and he gave himself considerable credit for
his management. But how to begin was the trouble, and he grew very red
in the face, and felt so warm and uncomfortable that the perspiration
began to show itself in little drops about his forehead and mouth. And
still he could not think of a word to say, until he saw by Roy’s manner
that he was meditating a return to the house. Then, screwing up his
courage to the highest pitch, and holding on to the seat with both his
hands, as if what he was about to do required physical as well as mental
effort, he made a beginning.

“I say, Roy,” he began, “I wonder you don’t get married. You’ve
everything with which to make a wife happy, and surely there are scores
of girls who would jump at the chance of coming here to live.”

Roy gave a little tired yawn, and answered indifferently:

“Perhaps so, but you see I don’t exactly know where they are, and I
should not care to be refused,” and as he said it, visions of blue
jackets, and white skirts, and little boots, mixed themselves together
in his brain in a confused kind of way, and as was quite natural, a
thought of Georgie, too, crossed his mind. He always thought of her when
matrimony was suggested to him, but he had no suspicion that his
companion was drifting that way. Poor Mr. Burton, who felt as if every
particle of blood in his veins was rushing to his face and gathering
around the roots of his hair, fidgeted from side to side, got up and
looked behind him, spit several times, then sat down again, and said:

“You are too modest, boy,—too modest. I know of forty, I’ll bet, that
would not say no.”

“Name one, please,” Roy said, shutting his eyes indolently, and leaning
against the trunk of a tree.

Mr. Burton hesitated a moment, and then replied:

“Well, there’s Agatha Shawe for one, and Bell Bradley for another,
and—and—(by Jove, I may as well blurt it out and done with it,) and
Georgie, my wife’s niece. (I’m in for it now, confound it.) She’s a
splendid girl; don’t lack for offers; had one this morning from that
young Bigelow from Boston.”

“Ah, did she? and will she accept?” Roy asked, beginning for the first
time to feel some interest in the conversation.

“Don’t know. You can’t calculate on a woman, but it’s my opinion she
won’t. Roy, old boy, I’ll be cussed if I mayn’t as well say it; I do
believe the girl likes you, and I’d rather have you for a son-in-law
than any chap I know, and I’ll be hanged if I don’t think you’ve given
her cause to suppose you meant something by hangin’ off and on as you
have this last year or two. Anyhow, people think so, and talk about it,
and suppose you to be engaged, and that hurts a girl if it never comes
to anything, and, well,—well,—blast it all,—as Georgie’s father, so
called, and as,—to be sure,—as Mrs. Burton’s husband,—I feel called
upon,—yes,—very much as the head of a family,—to inquire if you are in
earnest, or not,—and if not,—why,—say it out, and let her alone, and not
stand in the way of others. There,—I’ve out with it, and I sweat like
rain.”

The poor man wiped his wet face with his handkerchief, and looked
anywhere but at Roy, who had managed to make out from rather confused
jumble that he had done wrong to Georgie by allowing people to think
there was anything serious between them, and that as Georgie’s father,
Mr. Burton had at last spoken to prevent more mischief in the future.
While acknowledging to himself that Mr. Burton was right, and that
Georgie had some cause for complaint, Roy still found himself in a
quandary, and uncertain how to act. If he owed Georgie any redress, he
ought as an honorable man to pay it, and perhaps he could not do better.
She _was_ a nice girl, he really believed, and would perhaps make him as
happy as any one he could select. He meant to marry some time, and might
as well do it now as to put it off to a later period. And then the
Bigelow offer _did_ trouble him a little, and he began to see that he
had fallen into the habit of looking upon Georgie as something
essentially his own when he chose to make up his mind that she suited
him.

On the whole, she _did_ suit him, and he would at once arrange with her,
and have the matter settled. All this passed through his mind in much
less time than it has taken us to write it, and he was about to put his
thoughts into words, when across the lawn came the sound of a merry,
girlish voice, which he knew to be Miss Overton’s; and again blue
jackets, and brown eyes, and little feet brought a throb of something he
could not define to his heart, and Georgie did not seem quite so
desirable as she had a moment before. But he must say something, and so
he began to explain that he meant no harm to Georgie by his attentions;
that he esteemed her highly, and could not deny having had thoughts of
making her his wife; but that he found himself so comfortable just as he
was, with her always available when he wanted her society, that he had
put the matter off as a something in the future; and so, perhaps, had
wronged her, but he would endeavor—

He did not finish the sentence, for a servant just then appeared around
a clump of evergreens, telling him they were waiting for him upon the
lawn, where the refreshments were ready to be served.

“Yes, I’ll come at once;” and with a sense of relief, Roy jumped up, and
turning to Mr. Burton, said: “You may be sure I shall do right in the
future, whatever I may have done in the past. But tell me, please,”—and
Roy’s voice dropped to a whisper,—“did she know you were to speak to me?
Did she desire it?”

“Certainly not,” Mr. Burton replied, with some little asperity of
manner, which Roy acknowledged was just, while at the same time he was
glad to be assured that Georgie did not know.

She would have fallen in his estimation, if she had, and he wanted to
think as well of her as he could; for, in his mind, as he walked back to
the lawn, there was a rapidly forming resolution to propose to her
immediately, and thus make amends for any harm done her heretofore.

The tables looked very pretty under the trees, with fruit, and flowers,
and ices, and silver; and the guests were in their gayest moods; but
something was the matter, and Roy felt as if oppressed with a nightmare
as he did the duties of host, seeing nothing distinctly except Miss
Overton’s face, which, flushed with excitement, seemed prettier than
ever. He did not care for Miss Overton that he knew of; certainly he had
never had a thought of loving her, and yet he knew every time she moved,
and what she did, and what she said, and something connected with her
made it harder for him to concentrate his mind on Georgie, as he felt in
duty bound to do.

The lawn tea was over at last, and the little party were talking of a
game of croquet by moonlight, when down one of the gravel walks came
Mrs. Burton, her rich silk rustling about her, and her lace streamers
floating back from her head. She had concluded to drive over in the
carriage, she said, as some of the young people might be glad to ride
home.

She was very affable and gracious, and when questioned with regard to
Georgie, said she was better,—so much better, indeed, that she was up
and dressed, and then, by various little subterfuges, she tried to decoy
Roy into going to the house, and finally succeeded by insisting that his
mother must have a shawl if she persisted in staying out there in the
evening air. Wholly unsuspicious, Roy started for the house, and,
looking into the parlor as he passed through the hall, gave vent to an
exclamation of surprise at seeing Georgie Burton reclining upon a little
divan standing in the bay-window. As Mrs. Burton had said, Georgie was
better; her headache had disappeared, and she had thought often and
regretfully of the party at Leighton, and wished herself with them. As
she felt stronger, and her nerves became more quiet, the terror of the
previous night, when her secret seemed in danger of being discovered,
grew less and less. Maude was to be her sister, and, of course, it was
for her interest to keep to herself whatever might be derogatory to any
member of Jack’s family; and, beside that, in thinking over all that had
been said, Georgie was not quite sure as to how much Maude knew, and in
that doubt was some comfort. Moreover, she meant to keep her part of the
contract religiously, and Edna had nothing to fear from her for the
present. If Roy should show a decided liking for her, while she, in
turn, tried to practise on him the wiles which had lured poor Charlie to
his destruction, she might, in some quiet way, warn him or Mrs.
Churchill as to whom they were harboring. Anonymous letters were always
available, and she should not hesitate a moment when it became necessary
to act. But for the present she should be very gracious and kind to Miss
Overton; and having thus decided upon her _rôle_, she felt extremely
anxious to begin; and when her aunt suggested driving over to Leighton,
she consented readily, and dressed herself with unusual care, thinking
as she did so, that a little less color than she usually had, and a
little heaviness of her eyes, was not unbecoming. And she was right; for
the traces of her headache softened rather than detracted from her
brilliant beauty, and she had seldom looked better than when Roy found
her in the recess of the window, her face a little pale, and indicative
of recent suffering, her eyes very gentle, and even sad in their
expression, and her hands folded together upon her lap in a tired kind
of way, as if she was glad to rest, and did not care to be disturbed
even by Roy himself.

To do Georgie justice, she had no suspicion whatever that her uncle had
been interfering in her behalf, and her face lighted up with a glow
which made her wonderfully beautiful, as she sat with her shawl of
bright cherry thrown around her shoulders, and showing well against her
simple dress of soft black tissue.

Roy liked her in black; he had told her so once at Newport, when her
dress was silken tissue, and her only ornament a spray of golden-rod
twined among her glossy curls. She could not get golden-rod, but she had
placed a white rose in her hair, and another upon the front of her
dress, and Roy thought what a fine picture she made, with the setting
sunbeams falling around her. And this picture might be his for the
asking, he was very sure, and his heart gave a throb of something like
pleasure at finding her alone.

“Why, Georgie!” he exclaimed, coming forward, and offering her his hand;
“this is a surprise; I did not expect to find you here.”

“Which does not mean, I hope, that I am not welcome?” Georgie said, with
one of her rare smiles.

“Certainly not; you are always welcome. How is that poor head? better, I
hope,” Roy replied, still holding her hand and looking down upon her,
while she blushed coyly, and affected to draw her hand away from his.
“What makes you have such dreadful headaches, I wonder?” Roy said next,
as he took a seat beside her, forgetful entirely of his mother’s shawl,
for which he had been sent.

Georgie did not know why she was so afflicted, unless it was from having
too much time to think; she believed she would be better if she had some
aim in life, some interest beside just living for her own gratification.
She wanted something to do; something which would be of real benefit to
mankind, and she had had serious thoughts of offering herself to the
Freedman’s Bureau as a teacher of negroes. That would rouse her up, and
she should feel as if she were of use to somebody; now she was not, and
she was getting tired of eternally thinking of fashion and one’s self.

Georgie talked right along, clothing her sentiments in very appropriate
language, and appearing as much in earnest as if she really had been
meditating a trial of life among the negroes, whereas she knew in her
heart that she would die sooner than sacrifice herself in that way, and
that the idea had birth in her brain that very instant when she gave it
expression. Accustomed to Roy as she was, she saw at a glance the change
in his manner toward her, and always on the lookout for opportunities
where he was concerned, she seized the present one and made the most of
it.

Roy had highly eulogized some young ladies from Albany who had left
luxurious homes, and given themselves to the wearisome task of teaching
the freedmen; and knowing this, Georgie proposed to martyr herself just
for effect, and her ruse worked well, for the true honest man at her
side, who had never deceived a person in his life, had no conception of
the depths of art and hypocrisy which she was capable of practising. He
believed she did want something to occupy her mind, that she was tired
of the idle, aimless life fashionable ladies led, and he felt himself
drawn towards her as he never had before. She certainly could make him
happy, and perhaps he might as well speak now, and have it settled. But
before he had a chance to do so, Georgie suddenly assumed a troubled,
perplexed look, and, after a little hesitancy said:

“Roy, you seem about as much like a brother to me as Jack does himself,
and I want to ask you something in strict confidence. Do you know
anything against Charlie Bigelow, of Boston, the one we met at Saratoga?
He has proposed to a friend of mine, and my opinion is wanted in the
matter. I rather liked him, but men sometimes know each other better
than women know them, and as I am interested in my friend’s happiness, I
wish you to tell me honestly if you would advise her to accept him.”

Georgie looked innocently at him, but her eyes drooped beneath something
which she saw in his, and her cheeks burned painfully, while the better
side of her nature asserted itself for an instant, and cried out against
suffering Roy Leighton to take the step she felt sure he was meditating.
It was true that every word she had uttered since he had joined her had
been spoken with a direct reference to this end; but she trembled now
that she saw the end approaching, and half raised her hand as if to ward
it off. The thought of losing Georgie made her more valuable to Roy, and
he could not let her go without an effort to keep her. The blue jacket
and the brown eyes and tiny boots were forgotten, and bending over the
beautiful woman, he said:

“Georgie, something tells me that the young friend of whom you have
spoken is yourself. Do you love Charlie Bigelow, Georgie?”

He spoke so kindly that the hot tears came with a swift rush to
Georgie’s eyes, which were very lustrous and beseeching, when for an
instant they looked up at Roy, who continued:

“I don’t believe you do; and if not, don’t marry him for the sake of an
aim in life. Better carry out your other Quixotic idea, and teach the
Southern negroes. But why do either? Why not come here and live with me?
I have always had an idea that you would come some time. Will you,
Georgie?”

For a moment Georgie sat perfectly silent, looking at him with an
expression of perfect happiness beaming in her eyes, and showing itself
in every feature of her face; then gradually the expression changed, and
was succeeded by one of terror and remorse, and the dark eyes turned
away from Roy, and seemed to be looking far away at something which made
them terrible while that fixed, stony gaze lasted. Wondering greatly at
her manner, Roy said, “Georgie, won’t you answer me?”

And this time he passed his arm around her, but she writhed herself from
his embrace, and putting out both hands, said impetuously.

“Don’t, Roy; don’t touch me; don’t say the words again to me; take them
back, please, lest it prove a greater temptation than I can bear, for,
Roy, oh, Roy, I do—I do love you, and if I could I would so gladly live
with you always; but—but—I can’t,—I can’t. I am—I was—oh, Roy, take the
words back before I go quite mad.”

He almost thought her mad now, and came a little nearer to her, asking
what she meant, and why, if she loved him as she had said, his asking
her to marry him should affect her so. And while he said this to her she
began to recover her composure, and to be more like herself. The good
impulse which had counselled her not to deceive Roy Leighton, and impose
herself upon him without a confession of the past, was subsiding; and
though there still were bitter pangs of remorse and terrible regrets for
the past, she began to feel that she could not lose what she had desired
so long, and to Roy’s questionings, she answered: “I am not so good as
you think me. I am not worthy of you. I am—you don’t know how bad I am.
You would hate me if you did.”

She was growing excited again. All the good there was in the woman was
asserting itself in Roy’s behalf, and she continued:

“Everybody would hate me as I hate myself always.”

He took a step backward as if she really were the creature she professed
to be; but _now_ it was her hand which was reached out to _him_. She
could not let him go, and she gasped,—

“But Roy, with you, who are so noble and good, I could learn to be
better, and I will. I swear it here, that if you make me your wife, I
will be true and faithful, and do my best to make you happy. Try me and
see if I don’t.”

Perplexed and bewildered with what he had seen and heard, and half
inclined already to be sorry, Roy was still too honorable to draw back,
and when she said so piteously, “Try me, Roy, and see if I don’t,” he
took her offered hand and pressed it between his own, and answered her:
“I know you will, Georgie. We all have faults, and you must make
allowances for mine, as I will for yours, which, I am sure you overrate,
or else I have strangely misjudged you. Why, Georgie, you would almost
make one believe you had been guilty of some dreadful thing, you accuse
yourself so unmercifully.”

Roy laughed lightly as he said this, while Georgie felt for a moment as
if her heart were in her throat, and it was only by the most powerful
efforts of the will that she forced it back, and recovered her powers of
speech sufficiently to say: “Don’t imagine, pray, that I’ve murdered or
stolen, or done anything that makes me amenable to the law. It is
general badness;” and her old smile broke for the first time over her
face, to which the color was coming back.

“You are so good, that nothing less than perfection should ever hope to
win you, and I am so far from that; but I am going to be better, and the
world shall yet say that Roy Leighton chose wisely and well.”

She had settled it, and Roy was an engaged man; and as he looked down
upon the beautiful face of his _fiancée_, he felt that the world would
even now say he had done well without waiting for any improvement in his
betrothed, who looked up at him in such a loving, confiding way, that he
naturally enough stooped and kissed her lips, and called her his
darling, and felt sure that he loved her, and was happy in doing so.

Georgie possessed the rare gift of going rapidly from one extreme mood
to another. She had been very low down in the depths of humiliation, and
in her excitement had almost told Roy secrets she guarded as she did her
life; and from that depth she had risen to the heights of bliss,
trembling a little as she remembered how near she had come to being
stranded by her own act, and mentally chiding herself for her weakness
in allowing herself to be so excited about something Roy never _could_
know unless Jack or Maude betrayed her, as she was sure they would not.
She had detected the wavering for a moment on Roy’s part, and lest it
should occur again, and work detriment to her cause, she said to him:

“I do not believe in secret engagements, and shall tell Aunt Burton at
once, as you, of course, will tell your mother.”

Then Roy _did_ wince a little, and thought of Miss Overton, and wished
Georgie was not in such a hurry to have it known that they were engaged,
and told her she was right, and he would tell his mother that night, and
asked if they should not join his guests upon the lawn. Georgie’s
languor was all gone, and, taking Roy’s arm, she went with him through
the house and out into the beautiful grounds, feeling as she went a
sense of ownership in them all, which made her walk like a queen as she
approached the group upon the lawn, and received their words of
greeting.




                            CHAPTER XXXIII.
                    HOW THE ENGAGEMENT WAS RECEIVED.


Roy’s guests had missed him, and commented upon his absence, and Mrs.
Churchill had wondered if he could not find her shawl, and Edna had
offered to go herself for it. Then Mrs. Burton said that she had left
Georgie in the house, and probably she and Roy were deep in some learned
discussion, as they usually got up an argument when they were together.
She would go herself for Mrs. Churchill’s shawl, as she knew just where
it was.

But Mrs. Churchill would not suffer this. She preferred that Miss
Overton should go; and accordingly Edna went, and in passing through the
hall glanced into the drawing-room, and saw the couple at the farther
end too much absorbed in themselves to know there was a witness to their
love-making. Roy was kissing Georgie as the seal to their betrothal, and
by that token Edna knew they were engaged, and felt for a moment as if
the brightness of her life had suddenly been stricken out, though why
she should care, she could not tell. She only knew that she did care,
and that her heart was throbbing painfully as she fled noiselessly up
the stairs in the direction of Mrs. Churchill’s room. Once there, she
stopped a moment to breathe and think over what she had seen, and ask
herself what it was to her, that the heart-beats should come so fast,
and the world should look so dark.

“Nothing, nothing,” she said, “only he might have done so much better,
and have been so much happier. I don’t like her, and when she comes here
I must go; and I could enjoy so much alone with Roy and his mother;” and
having thus settled the cause of her disquiet, she found Mrs.
Churchill’s shawl, and left the house by another way than the one
leading past the parlor door.

She had been very gay just before, so gay indeed that Miss Agatha, who
did not believe in a plebeian’s daring to be merry and free in the
presence of superiors, had made some sarcastic remarks about “the wild
spirits of that Miss Overton.” But she was not wild when she returned to
the lawn with the shawl, and her face was so pale, that Maude asked if
she had seen a ghost that she looked so white and scared.

“No,” Edna replied; “but I ran quite fast up and down the stairs.”

“And did you see anything of my daughter,” Mrs. Burton asked next, and
Edna answered her evasively:

“I heard voices in the parlor, hers and Mr. Leighton’s, I think.”

“Oh, yes, there they come,” Mrs. Burton rejoined, her face all aglow
with the great delight it afforded her to sit and watch Georgie coming
toward her so graceful and self-possessed, and looking so radiant and
beautiful.

One could see her black eyes sparkle and shine even in the distance, as
she leaned on Roy’s arm, and smiled at something he was saying to her.
Georgie was very happy for a few moments, and not a ripple of disquiet
came to the surface until her glance fell on Edna, sitting upon a camp
stool a little apart from the others, her hat on the grass at her side,
her brown curls somewhat disordered, but falling about her face and neck
in a most bewitching way, her hands folded listlessly together upon her
lap, and her whole attitude and appearance that of some tired, pretty
child. She _was_ pretty, and Georgie knew it; and she looked so young,
and fair, and innocent, that Georgie felt a sudden impulse of fear lest,
after all, this girl, who would see Roy every day, should become her
rival, and with that impulse came a thought that the sooner her
engagement was known the better and safer for her. So clasping her white
hand on Roy’s arm, she whispered to him softly: “Perhaps we may as well
have it off our minds and announce it at once; we shall both feel freer
and easier.”

Roy could not answer for her, but for himself he did not care to be in
haste, especially with Miss Overton sitting there looking so eagerly at
him. She was a restraint upon him, and he unconsciously wished her away
while he made the announcement, for he was going to do it. Georgie was
probably right. She usually was, he reflected, and without a second look
at Edna, walked straight to his mother, and placing Georgie’s hand in
hers, said to her, “Mother I bring to you a daughter: Georgie has
promised to be my wife.”

“Heaven bless my soul!” Mr. Burton exclaimed, springing up from his
chair and bobbing about like a rubber ball.

He had not expected Roy to act upon his hint so soon; in fact he was
more than half afraid that nothing might come of it after all, and then
Mrs. Freeman Burton would never cease to upbraid him with his
awkwardness; but here it was fixed, settled, and announced, and he could
not repress his feelings until a sharp pull at his coat-skirts from his
spouse, and the whispered words, “Are you crazy?” brought him to his
senses, and he sat down just as Georgie finished kissing Mrs. Churchill,
and whispered to her what a good daughter and wife she meant to be.

Mrs. Churchill was glad, as it was something she had long desired, but
now that Miss Overton had come she did not so much need a daughter.
Still she was sufficiently demonstrative, and laid her hand in blessing
on Georgie’s head, while Mrs. Burton shed a few tears over the touching
scene, and called Roy a naughty boy for stealing away her treasure, and
said a deal more about the engagement generally, and Georgie in
particular.

Maude came next with the New York girls, but there was a blank look of
disappointment in her face as she kissed Georgie and offered her
congratulations. She had not looked for this so suddenly. Once she had
been constantly expecting it, but they had waited so long, and latterly
Roy had seemed so indifferent, that she had hopes for him in another
direction, and felt disturbed and sorry, and wondered how Jack would
take it.

Jack was at some distance from the group of which Georgie was the
centre, but he heard what Roy had said, and saw the demonstrations which
followed, but did not join in them. Knowing what he knew, he could not
congratulate Roy, who was being so deceived; and his breath came hard,
and something like an oath escaped his lips, as he purposely drove a
ball to the farthest extremity of the croquet lawn, and then kept on
idly knocking it about. He meant to keep away as long as possible, and
Georgie knew he did, and her cheek paled a little when at last he came
near enough for her to see the troubled look upon his face, as he sat
down by Edna and fanned himself with his hat.

The evening air was cool, but he seemed to be very warm, and constantly
wiped the drops of sweat from his brow, as he sat talking with Edna. The
announcement of the engagement had not been made to _her_; there was no
need for her to do or say anything, and so she feigned indifference, and
kept on talking to Jack until Georgie came that way. Jack saw her first,
and, suddenly remembering that he had not put his mallet in the box,
darted away just as his sister came up.

She was thus left alone with Edna, to whom she was excessively gracious
and affable. Taking the seat Jack had vacated, she began to talk as
kindly and familiarly as if all her life she had known Miss Overton as
her equal. There was something wonderfully winning in Georgie when she
chose to be agreeable, and it had its effect upon Edna, who began to
like her better and to wonder at the change. It was a part of Georgie’s
_rôle_ to treat Edna well,—part of her bargain with Maude; and she was
resolved to fulfil her contract, and she sat chatting with her until Roy
came up and said that Mrs. Burton thought it was time for her to go in
from the night air. He did not say that _he_ thought so, or evince any
undue anxiety about her health, but he did say to Edna:

“Miss Overton, I am sure the damp air must be bad for you also; take my
arm, please, and come with us to the house.”

And so, with Georgie upon one side and Edna on the other, he led the way
to the house, followed by Mr. Burton, who had his mother in charge, and
by Mrs. Burton, who was lauding Georgie to Miss Shawe, and telling what
an angel of perfection she was, how hard it would be to part with her,
and how glad she was that she was to go no farther away than Leighton.

There was some music in the drawing-room, and afterward ice-cream and
cake; and then, at about half-past ten, the little party broke up.
Georgie was still in a gushing mood, and kissed Mrs. Churchill three
times at parting, and even kissed Edna in the exuberance of her joy, and
said she hoped to know her better in the future, and bade her take good
care of dear Mrs. Churchill; and then she looked around for Roy, who led
her to the carriage, and pressed her hand a little at parting, and said
he should see her to-morrow.

Mr. and Mrs. Burton, Georgie, and Miss Shawe, occupied the carriage,
while the other people walked; Maude and Jack lingering behind the
others, so that it was nearer one than twelve when they at last reached
Oakwood. But late as it was, Georgie was waiting for them. She _must_
see Jack before she slept. He was to return to Jersey City on the
morrow, and she might not have another chance.

So she sat by her window until she heard him coming up the walk, and
then waited until the whispered interview on the piazza was at an end,
and Maude was in her room. Then she passed noiselessly out into the
hall, and on through a narrow corridor, until Jack’s chamber was
reached.

“Come in!” was answered rather sternly to her timid knock, and by the
tone of his voice, she knew that Jack guessed who his visitor was, and
she trembled as she advanced toward him, and laid her hand on his arm.

He did not smile, nor allow his face to relax a muscle, even when she
looked up at him in her most beseeching way, and began by calling him
“dear Jack.” But he _would_ soften after a time, she was sure. He never
had withstood her long at a time, and so she mustered all her courage,
and began:

“Dear Jack, I’ve had no chance to congratulate you on your engagement,
and I came to do so now, and to tell you how glad I am. I would rather
have Maude for my sister than any one I know. You have chosen well, my
boy.”

“I am glad you think so,” Jack answered stiffly; and then there was a
painful silence, which Georgie broke by saying:

“Jack, have you no word of congratulation for me in my new happiness?”

The tears were swimming in her great, bright eyes, and she seemed the
very embodiment of innocence and goodness; but Jack looked away from
her, straight down at some slippers which Annie had embroidered for him,
and asked:

“_Are_ you happy, Georgie?”

“Yes, oh, yes; so happy that I feel as if I never could be thankful
enough to the good Father who has been so kind to me.”

“Pshaw!” and Jack spoke impatiently. “Don’t, for gracious sake, try to
come your _pious_ strains on me, for I tell you they won’t go down till
you have done one thing. Have you told Roy?”

He looked at her now, and her eyes fell before his searching gaze, while
her heart beat so fast that he could hear and count the throbs as her
bosom rose and fell.

“No, Jack; I have not. I tried at first,—I meant to,—I really did; but I
could not say the words, they choked me so. I couldn’t tell him, Jack!”
and her voice was very mournful in its tone. “Think, if it were
yourself, and you felt sure that to tell would be to lose Maude’s love,
would you do it?—could you?”

She had made her strongest argument, and Jack hesitated ere he replied:

“It would be hard; but better so, it seems to me, than to live with a
lie on my conscience, and a constant, haunting fear lest she should find
it out.”

“But he can’t, Jack,—he never can,—unless _you_ tell him, or Maude. How
much does _she_ know? Oh, Jack, have you broken your oath, sworn so
solemnly to me.”

There was a flash in her black eyes as they fastened themselves upon
Jack, who replied to her, truthfully:

“Maude knows nothing, except that there is something you would hide from
Roy, and from the world. I hinted so much to her, as a weapon of defence
for Edna. Whether she or any one else ever knows more from me, depends
upon yourself, and your treatment of Edna.”

“I knew you would not betray me, Jack,” Georgie rejoined, a heavy weight
lifted from her mind. “I shall not harm Mrs. Charlie Churchill,—I shall
try to like her, for your sake and Maude’s. And, now, why need I tell
Roy, when he never can, by any possibility, find it out, and to tell him
would only distress him, and ruin me?”

“Perhaps not. If he loves you truly, as I love Maude, he can forgive a
great deal. I should try it and see,—I should go to him clean and
open-hearted, or not at all,” Jack said; but Georgie shook her head.

Confessing her fault would involve too much, for more people than Roy
would have to know, if full confession was made; Aunt Burton, who
thought her so perfect, and her Uncle Burton, too, and, possibly, little
Annie; and from that last ordeal Georgie shrank more nervously, if
possible, than from telling Roy himself. She could _not_ do it. She
would rather die than attempt it, and she said so to Jack, who was
silent for a moment, and then regarding her intently, asked:

“Has it ever occurred to you, Georgie, that possibly the dead might come
to life and witness against you? Such accidents have happened.”

“The dead, Jack; the dead?” and Georgie’s face was like the face of a
corpse, and her voice was husky and thick. “That cannot be. I saw him in
the coffin. I know just where he lies in Greenwood.”

“I was not thinking of him, but of Henry; you did not see him in his
coffin. You don’t know where his grave is.”

“No; but Jack, there can be no doubt. You made so sure yourself. You
told me he was dead. Was it all a farce? Oh, Jack, do you know
anything—”

She was kneeling to him now, with her proud head bent to his very feet,
just as once she had crouched years ago when he was but a boy, and she a
wretched woman suing for pity and begging him to stand by her in her
need. Then her long glossy curls had swept the floor just as they swept
it now, and Jack had lifted her up, and comforted her, and sworn to be
her friend, and he wanted to do it again, though his heart was harder
toward her now than it had been then. He could more readily forgive the
sin committed through great temptation when she was young and without a
counsellor, than he could forgive the many years during which she had
lived a lie. Still he pitied her so much, and loved her so much, for she
was his sister, and her great beauty had always exercised a wonderful
power over him. He felt it even now as she lifted her white,
tear-stained face to his, and as he had done that other time in the
darkest hour she had ever met, so he did now; he stooped and raised her
up, and tried to comfort her, and said that he “knew nothing and had
heard nothing, only such things sometimes did happen, and it would be
very awkward for her, as Roy’s wife, to be some day confronted by Henry
Morton.”

“Don’t, don’t speak his name,” she almost shrieked, while a shudder like
a convulsion shook her frame. “I have been greatly to blame, but my
punishment has been terrible. I have suffered untold agony in thinking
of the past. I surely have atoned, and now if there is a haven of rest
for me, don’t try to keep me from it by harrowing up my fears. I _know_
he is dead. I am sure of it, and I mean to be a good wife to Roy. He
never shall repent his choice,—I’ll bring every thought and feeling into
conformity with his; and Jack, you must stand by me as a brother. Will
you, Jack? As Roy’s wife, I can help you so much, and I will. Annie
shall no longer be an expense to you. I will support her entirely.”

“And not let Roy know you are doing it?” Jack answered; and Georgie
replied:

“I will tell him that, at least. I will not cheat him there. I’ll
arrange it before we are married, that I am to do something for Annie,
and perhaps when he sees how I care for her he will propose that she
live with us. Oh, if he only would.”

Jack felt that on this point, at least, Georgie was sincere. She _did_
love the little Annie, and his heart softened still more toward her; and
when, as she was about to leave him, she said, imploringly, “Kiss me,
Jack, once, as you used to do!” he put his arm around her, and kissed
her white lips, which quivered with emotion, while the tears fell like
rain upon her cheeks.

“You are a good brother, and I will try to be good, too, for your sake
and Roy’s,” she said, as she bade him good-night, and left the room.

He had not congratulated her, but she knew he would keep silent; knew,
too, that she had comparatively nothing to fear from Maude; and but for
one harrowing fear, which yet was not exactly a fear, she would have
felt tolerably composed and happy, as she sought her own chamber.

Jack’s words, “What if the dead should come back to witness against
you?” rang in her ears, and when, as she stood by the window, looking
out into the moonlight, a shadow flitted across the grass, she trembled
from head to foot, and turned sick with nervous dread. But it was only
the watch-dog, Bruno, and as he bounded out into the light, she grew
quiet, and even smiled at her own weakness.

“That cannot be,” she said; and then, as if to make assurance doubly
sure, she opened a trunk which always stood in her closet, and taking
from it a box, touched a secret spring, and soon held in her hand three
documents,—one, a newspaper, soiled and yellow with time, and containing
a paragraph which said that a certain Henry Morton, who had managed to
escape from justice, had recently died in a little out-of-the-way
village among the Alleghanies, and that his friends, if he had any,
could learn the particulars of his death, by inquiring at the place
where he died. The other two were letters, one from the dying man
himself, who wrote that, from the very nature of his disease, he had but
a day or two to live; and one from Jack, who had gone to that
out-of-the-way place, among the Pennsylvania hills, and learned that
Henry Morton had died there at such a time, and then had written the
same to his anxious sister at home. She had kept these papers carefully,
and guarded them from every eye but her own, and occasionally she read
them over to assure herself of the truth. But now she would keep them no
longer, lest in some way they should come to light; and so, holding them
to the gas, and then throwing them upon the hearth, she watched them as
they crisped and blackened, and turned to a pile of ashes.

There was nothing now in her way, and, as was her constant habit, the
woman who had sinned so greatly, but who was going to do better, knelt
down and said her prayers, and thanked God for Roy, and asked, first,
that he might never know what she had been; and, second, that she might
be to him all that a good, true wife should be, and that he might be
willing for Annie to live with her. This done, she felt as if she really
were a very good woman, and that but for Jack, who had such
straight-laced notions, she would be confirmed, by way of helping her to
keep her resolution!




                             CHAPTER XXXIV.
                      HOW THEY GOT ON AT LEIGHTON.


Roy’s first thought on waking the next morning, was to wonder what had
happened that he should feel so oppressed, as if a load were bearing him
down. Then it came to him that he was engaged, and he wondered why that
should affect his spirits as it did.

All the excitement of the previous night was gone, and he could reason
clearly now, and remember how queerly Georgie had talked and acted at
first, just as if she had done some horrible deed, which, if she should
confess it, would prove a barrier between them. But she had not
confessed, and she had recovered her usual composure, and accepted him,
and was going to be his wife sometime, he hardly knew when, though he
had a vague idea that there need be no undue haste. He had done his duty
in asking her, and surely Mr. Burton would not urge an immediate
marriage, neither would Georgie desire it; girls never did; and having
fixed the blissful day at some period far in the future, Roy gave a
relieved yawn, and went on with his toilet, quickening his movements a
little when he saw from his window the flutter of a white dress, and
knew that Miss Overton was already in the grounds.

“She is an early riser, and it must be that which makes her look so
fresh, and bright, and young, though of course she is very young. I
wonder, by the way, how old Georgie is. I never heard any one hazard a
conjecture. Sometimes she looks all of twenty-eight, though that can’t
be, as she has only been out of school four or five years; and even if
she is, I am thirty myself, and two years difference is enough, provided
the husband has the advantage. Georgie will never look old with those
eyes and that hair.”

Roy was dressed by this time, and went out to join Miss Overton in her
morning walk.

He found her in a little arbor, looking pale and tired, as if she had
not slept; but she smiled brightly as he came up, and made some remark
about the pleasant morning. He wanted her to talk of Georgie,—wanted to
be reassured that he had done well for himself; but as nothing had been
said to her on the subject, she did not feel at liberty to introduce it,
and so the conversation drifted as far as possible from Miss Burton, and
turned at last upon _Edna_, whom Roy hoped eventually to have at
Leighton.

“She will come, of course, when I am married,” he said. “She can then
have no excuse for not coming.”

“Perhaps your wife would not like her,” Edna suggested, and Roy replied:

“I am sure she will. Georgie is not hard to please, and from Edna’s
letters I judge her to be a very bright, sprightly little body. There’s
a good deal of mischief about her, I guess. I saw her once in the cars
with some of her schoolmates. I had been very sick and was still an
invalid, nervous and irritable, and afraid of the least breath of air.
Girl-like, they opened all the windows near them, and mother got a
cinder in her eye, and I began to sneeze, and at last asked the sauciest
looking one to shut the window, not pleasantly, you know, but savagely,
as if I were the only person to be considered in the car. She did shut
it with a bang, and then avenged herself by making a caricature of me,
shivering in a poke bonnet, and called me a Miss Betty.”

“How did you know that?” Edna asked, looking up with so much surprise as
almost to betray herself.

She had not thought of that sketch since the day when it was made, and
she was curious to hear how Roy came to know about it.

“She dropped it as she left the car, either purposely or accidentally,
and mother picked it up,” Roy said. “I have it still, and if I ever see
her and know her well, I mean to show it to her and have some fun with
it,” he continued, while Edna asked, a little uneasily:

“Then you were not angry with her for her impertinence?”

“Yes, I was at the time, very angry, and wanted to box her ears; but
that only lasted a little time, and I was glad to see myself as others
saw me. I do believe it did me good. She must be something of an artist,
for even as a caricature the picture was a good one. I wish I knew where
she was. I must write to-day, and tell her of my engagement.”

He was trying to introduce that subject again, but Edna made no reply.
His mention of the picture had sent her off on an entirely different
train of thought, and she was glad that just then the breakfast bell
rang, and brought their walk to an end.

Roy spent the most of the day at Oakwood, but he was home at dinner, and
passed the evening there, and Edna heard him talking with his mother
about his engagement, and asking if she were glad.

“Yes, very glad,” was the reply; “though it does not matter quite so
much now as it did before Miss Overton came. I am getting really
attached to her, she seems so pleasant and refined, and knows what I
want before I tell her. She is a very superior person, I think, and must
have been well brought up.”

Mrs. Churchill did nothing by the halves; she liked or disliked
thoroughly; and, as she had conceived a great liking for her little
companion, she was more inclined to talk of her than of Georgie, though
she _did_ ask when the marriage was to take place.

“Whenever it suits Georgie,” Roy replied. “For myself, I am in no haste,
and should prefer waiting until next spring. We are very comfortable
now, and Miss Overton’s presence precludes the necessity of having some
one for company.”

He did not seem a very ardent lover, impatient for the happy day; and,
indeed, he was not, and much of his indifference was owing to Miss
Overton, who experienced a feeling of relief in knowing that Roy would
probably not bring his wife home until spring. She could not live with
Georgie; and that lady’s arrival as mistress would be the signal for her
departure. So she hailed with delight anything which would put off the
evil day; for, short as had been her stay at Leighton, she was very
happy there, and shrank from leaving it, with all its refinement, and
luxury, and ease. She did not mean to be a listener to any private
conversation between Roy and his mother, but, situated just as she was,
on the piazza, and directly under the window where they were sitting,
she could not well help herself, and so she sat still, while their talk
turned next upon Edna, whom Roy meant to have at Leighton as soon as
Georgie came.

“I’ve never felt right about it at all,” he said. “Poor little thing,
knocking about the world alone, trying to pay a debt she foolishly
thinks she owes me; and I am determined to find her at some rate, if I
put the police on her track. Wouldn’t you like to have her here when
Georgie comes?”

Mrs. Churchill hesitated a little, and then replied:

“Wouldn’t _three_ ladies be in each other’s way? for, Roy, I should not
like to have Miss Overton leave even when Georgie comes.”

“Nor I, nor I,” Roy said, quickly, with a feeling that he should greatly
miss the little girl, who could hear no more, lest her feelings should
betray themselves, and who, crawling upon her hands and feet, crept away
from the window and sought her own room, where she was free to indulge
in a hearty fit of tears.

Why she cried she hardly knew, though she made herself believe it was
for the pleasant home she must ere long give up, for after Roy’s
marriage she felt that she must go away, as she never could be happy
with Georgie at Leighton as its mistress. The thought of leaving was a
dreadful one, and she kept on crying in a desolate, homesick kind of
way, until she heard Mrs. Churchill coming up the stairs, and knew her
services would be needed. Remembering what had been said of her as Miss
Overton, there was an added tenderness and gentleness in her voice and
manner as she read the evening chapter to the half-blind woman, and then
helped to disrobe her. To brush and smooth Mrs. Churchill’s hair was one
of her nightly duties, and her fingers moved caressingly over the thin
locks and about the forehead, until the lady declared herself
mesmerized, and drawing Edna’s face down to her lips, kissed her
affectionately, saying as she did so:

“Excuse the liberty, but you seem more like a daughter than a stranger;
and, Miss Overton, you know of course I am to have a daughter by and by;
Georgie is to be Mrs. Roy Leighton, and I am glad, and think my son
could not have chosen better, or as well perhaps,—but—but—I want you to
stay just the same, even if Edna, that is Mrs. Charlie Churchill, comes
too, as Roy means to have her. Will you, Miss Overton?”

“You may get tired of me by that time and glad to have me leave,” Edna
replied, evasively; and making some excuse to leave the room, she staid
away so long that the conversation was not resumed when she returned
with the medicine which Mrs. Churchill always kept standing by her bed
at night.

Edna had not counted upon all the unpleasant things to which the
peculiarity of her position would subject her. She had no idea that she
should so often hear herself discussed, or be compelled to feel so
continually that she was living and acting a lie, or she would never
have been there as she was; and that night after leaving Mrs. Churchill
she began seriously to revolve the propriety of leaving Leighton, and
going back to Uncle Phil, who, she knew, would willingly welcome her.

After the departure of the city guests from Oakwood, Georgie spent
several days at Leighton, and acted the sweet, amiable daughter and
bride-elect to perfection, and petted Edna, and talked a great deal
about “poor Charlie,” and looked at Edna as she did so, and went with
her when she carried flowers to his grave, and called her a dear kind
creature to be so thoughtful for Mrs. Churchill.

“Of course it is not as if you had known him,” she said; and her great
black eyes looked straight at Edna, who colored scarlet, and turned her
face away to hide her guilty blushes.

Georgie was bent upon torturing her, and, seating herself in one of the
chairs, went over with all the harrowing particulars of the railroad
disaster, the fearful storm, the body crushed beneath the wreck, and the
young girl trying to extricate it. And Edna, listening to her, felt as
if she should scream outright with pain, so vivid was the picture
Georgie drew of that dreadful scene.

“Will she never stop,” she thought, as Georgie went on to relate all
that occurred at Leighton after the body was brought home, and told how
Mrs. Churchill went into convulsions, and denounced the girl as
Charlie’s murderer. Georgie was drawing a little upon her imagination,
but she was accustomed to that, and she had an object in what she was
doing. It was not alone to wound and torture her auditor, though that
was some satisfaction to her, but there was a fixed purpose in her mind
that Edna should _not_ remain at Leighton after her entrance there. She
did not like the girl; she had a mean kind of jealousy toward her, and
Mrs. Churchill’s praises of her only made her more determined that the
same roof should not shelter both. She dared not betray Edna’s secret,
but she could annoy and worry her, and she took a mean kind of delight
in seeing poor Edna writhe as she went on to talk of that girl whom
Charlie married, saying finally, that she hoped Roy would not insist
upon bringing her home, as he now seemed resolved to do.

“Not that _I_ should care at all. I probably should grow fond of her,
for Jack insists that she is very nice, and little Annie nearly worships
her; but for dear Mrs. Churchill’s sake I should be sorry to see her
here.”

“Why so? She talks kindly of her always,” Edna asked hotly, forgetting
herself for a moment, in her indignation.

But Georgie was sweetly unconscious of her excitement, and replied:

“Yes, Mrs. Churchill is a noble woman, and tries to forgive the girl,
and thinks she has done so; but I, who know her so well, can see the
effort she makes to speak kindly of her, and just how she shudders when
her name is accidentally mentioned. No, glad as I would be to help and
befriend the girl, I am naughty enough to hope Roy cannot find her. But
pray, Miss Overton, don’t repeat what I have said. I hardly know why I
have spoken so freely, unless it is that you have a way of taking our
hearts by storm, and not appearing in the least like a stranger. By the
way, you look a little like Mrs. Charlie Churchill; I thought of it the
first time I saw you here, and spoke of it to Roy, and just for fun
asked if it would not be a good joke if you were _Edna_ in disguise.”

“What did he say?” Edna asked, and, without looking at her victim,
Georgie replied: “He seemed to take altogether a different view of the
joke from what I did, and expressed himself decidedly against disguises
of all kinds. It would displease him very much to have Edna do such a
thing, he said. But I fear I have wearied you with talk which cannot
interest you, of course. You look pale and fagged. It’s the hot morning,
I guess. Suppose we go back to the house. Ah, there’s Roy now; I think
I’ll join him for a little walk upon the lawn.”

If Edna had ever entertained a thought of staying at Leighton after
Georgie was mistress there, it would have been swept away effectually by
what Georgie had said to her, just as that nice young lady meant it
should be. And what was worse than all, she could never let Roy know who
she was, after having been so foolish as to come to him _incog._ Why had
she done it? she asked herself many times. Why had Maude and Uncle Phil
suffered it; aye, contrived and advised it, and why hadn’t she listened
to Aunt Jerry, who had opposed it from the first. But it was too late
now. She was there as Miss Overton, and as such she must always remain
to Roy and his mother. By her own act she had precluded the possibility
of ever showing herself to them in her own proper person. Mrs.
Churchill, who already disliked Edna Browning and looked upon her as
Charlie’s murderer, would hate her should she know the truth, and Roy
would hate her too, and that was more than she could bear. She could not
lose his respect, and so she must never claim him as her brother; never
see him after she went away from Leighton. It was very hard, and Edna
cried bitterly for a few moments, while away in the distance walked
Georgie and Roy, up and down the wide lawn, but always where Georgie
could command a view of the little figure sitting so disconsolately
under the shadow of the grape-vine, and weeping, as she knew from the
motion of the hands which went so often to the face. Georgie was glad.
She had made Edna’s exit from Leighton a sure thing, and her spirits
rose proportionately with the mischief she had done. She was very gay
for the remainder of the day; very attentive to Mrs. Churchill; very
affectionate to Roy; very kind and patronizing to the servants, and very
familiar with Miss Overton, whom she petted and caressed, and kissed
gushingly, when, at night, she finally shook the dust of Leighton from
her garments and departed for Oakwood.




                             CHAPTER XXXV.
                                LETTERS.


In course of time there came a letter to Edna from Roy. It had been sent
by him to Aunt Jerry, and by her to Uncle Phil, who forwarded it to his
niece, together with a few lines of his own, telling how “all-fired
lonesome he was, and how he missed her gab, and the click-clack of her
high heels on the stairs, and the whisk of her petticoats through the
doors.”


“The synagogue is getting along slowly,” he wrote, “for the _cusses_—”
(he erased that word as hardly consistent for a man who was running a
church, and substituted “cattle,” so that it read) “the _cattle_ are on
another strike, what hain’t gone over to work on the Unitarian meetin’
house, which is havin’ the greatest kind of overhaulin’ inside and out.
The persuasion meets now in the Academy, and go it kind of ritual, with
the litany and some of the _sams_, which they read slower than time in
the primmer. Ruth Gardner leads off, and is getting up another carouse
to buy a _Fount_ to dip the young ones in, and expects to catch the new
minister. But let ’em run. Old Phil don’t ask no odds of Unitarian nor
Orthodox, nor nobody else. He’ll build his own church and pay his own
minister, if necessary, and burn _innocence_ too, if he wants to.

“I send a letter from Roy, I guess, and it has done some travellin’,
too, having gone first to that remarkable woman, your Aunt Jerushy, who
wrote to me as follows:

“‘Philip Overton, forward the enclosed to Edna, and oblige, Jerusha
Amanda Pepper.’

“Short and sweet, wasn’t it? but like the old gal, as you described her.
If Maude is there, tell her I am real hungry for a sight of her blue
eyes and sassy face. Come up here, both of you, as soon as you can.
Yours to command,

                                                       “PHILIP OVERTON.”


This was Uncle Phil’s letter, and Edna cried over it a little, and knew
just how lonely the old man was without her, and half wished she had not
left him, “though it would have been dreadful never to have known Roy at
all,” she said to herself, as she opened next Aunt Jerusha’s letter, in
which Roy’s was enclosed, and read what that worthy woman had to say.

There was a good deal about her “neurology,” and a sure cure she had
found for it, and about the new rector, who was as much too _low_ as the
other had been too _high_, inasmuch as he went to the Methodist
prayer-meetings and took a part in them, and said he wasn’t quite sure
about the direct line down from the Apostles; it might be straight
enough, but he guessed it had been broken a few times, and had some
knots in it where it was mended, and he fully indorsed young Tyng, and
believed in Henry Ward Beecher and Woman’s Rights, all of which she
considered worse than turning your back to the people, and bowing to the
floor in the creed, and so latterly she had staid at home and read the
Bible and Prayer-Book by herself, and sung a hymn and psalm, and felt
she was worshipping God quite as well as if she had gone to church and
been mad as fury all the time. She hoped Edna felt better now she was at
Leighton, though she was a big fool for going, and a bigger one if she
staid there after that woman with a boy’s name came as my lady.

“Roy was not satisfied with sending me a letter for _you_, but he must
needs write to _me_ too, and tell me he was going to be married; and
that he should insist upon knowing where you were, so he could persuade
you to live at Leighton, your proper place.

“So you see what’s before you, and you know my advice, which, of course,
you won’t follow. You are more than half in love with Roy yourself;
don’t deny it; I know better; and that critter with the boy’s name will
find it out, if she has not already, and you’ll hate one another like
pisen, and it’s no place for you. Better come back to Aunt Jerusha, and
keep the district school this winter. They want a woman teacher, because
they can get her cheap, and she’ll do her work better, as if there was
any justice in that. I believe in Woman’s Rights so far as equal pay for
the same work; but this scurriping through the country speech-making,
and the clothes-basket full of dirty duds at home, and your husband’s
night-shirt so ragged that if took sick sudden in the night he’d be
ashamed to send for the doctor, I don’t believe in, and never will.

“According to orders, I send this to your Uncle Philip, and s’pose
you’ll answer through the same channel and tell if you’ll come home
about your business, and teach school for sixteen dollars a month, and I
board you for the chores you’ll do night and morning.

                                                      Yours with regret,
                                                  “JERUSHA A. PEPPER.”

“Go back to Allen’s Hill, and teach school, and board with Aunt Jerusha,
and do chores?” Edna repeated to herself, as she finished the letter;
she might have added, “and leave Roy?” but she did not, though her face
turned scarlet as she recalled the words, “You are more than half in
love with Roy yourself.”

Was that true? She could not quite answer that it was, and she tried to
believe it was her attachment to Mrs. Churchill which made Leighton so
dear to her, and that Roy had nothing to do with it, except as he helped
to make her life very pleasant. She was _not_ in love with him, she
decided at last; if she were, she should think it her duty to leave at
once, but as it was, she should remain until the wedding, which had not
yet been appointed. Some time before Christmas, Georgie had told her,
while Mrs. Churchill had said:

“Roy will not marry till spring.”

And she believed the latter, because she wanted to, and saying to
herself, “I shall stay till Georgie comes, for Mrs. Churchill’s sake,”
she opened Roy’s letter, and read the kind, brotherly message he had
written to his “dear sister Edna, whom he wished so much to find.” There
were hot blushes on Edna’s cheeks, and she felt a heart throb of pain as
she began to read, in Roy’s own words, of his engagement to Georgie
Burton. She had known it all before, it is true, and had seen his
betrothed almost every day, and received, each time she saw her, some
little malicious stab through the medium of Edna Browning. She had also
been witness, at divers times, to various little love-passages between
the engaged pair, or rather of love-passages on Georgie’s part, for that
young lady was not at all backward in asserting her right to fondle and
caress her promised husband, who was not demonstrative, and who never of
his own accord so much as took Georgie’s hand in his own, or laid a
finger on her in the presence of others. He merely submitted to her
fondlings in silence and did not shake her off, though Edna sometimes
fancied he wanted to do so, when she hung so helplessly upon him, or put
her arm around his neck, and smoothed and caressed his hair, and called
him “Roy dear.” How he demeaned himself toward her when they were alone
Edna did not know, but seeing him always so quiet and reserved, she had
never realized that he was engaged as fully as she did when she saw it
in his own handwriting, and two burning tears rolled down her cheeks and
were impatiently dashed away as she read:

“And now, my little sister, I have something to communicate which may
surprise you, but which I hope will please you, inasmuch as I trust it
may have a direct bearing upon your future. I am engaged to be married
to the Miss Georgie Burton who was so kind to you and poor Charlie in
Iona. She is very nice, of course, and the most beautiful woman I have
ever met, unless it be a Miss Overton who is here as companion for
mother.”

Edna’s face and neck were scarlet now, and there was a throb of ecstasy
in her heart, as she read on:

“This Miss Overton is not at all like Georgie, but quite as beautiful, I
think, and both mother and myself like her immensely. She is nineteen, I
believe, but a _wee_ little creature, with the roundest, sauciest eyes,
the softest golden brown hair rippling all over her head, and the
sweetest, most innocent face, while her smile is something wonderful.
Maude Somerton, whom I wish you knew, calls her _Dotty_, but to myself I
call her ‘Brownie,’ her eyes and hair are such a pretty brown, just
tinged with golden, and her complexion, though smooth and soft, and very
bright, is still a little brownish.”

“A pretty way to talk about _me_, and he engaged to Georgie,” Edna said,
but not impatiently.

Indeed, she would have been well satisfied to have read Roy’s praises of
herself for the entire day, and felt a little annoyed when he turned
from Miss Overton’s beauty, to his plan of having his sister at Leighton
as soon as Georgie came, and begged her to tell him where she was, that
he might come for her himself.

“Mother wants you,” he wrote, “and surely for Charlie’s sake you will
heed her wishes.”

Edna wished she could believe that Mrs. Churchill would love her when
she knew who she was, but after Georgie’s insinuations she could not
hope to be esteemed by either Roy or his mother.

“They would hate and despise me,” she said, “so I shall not let them
know that _Edna_ was ever here, and my easier way will be not to answer
Roy’s letter, now or ever; I cannot tell him I am rejoiced at his
engagement, for I am not. I don’t like her; I never shall like her; I
almost think I hate her, or should if it were not so very wicked,” and
Edna’s boot-heels dug into the carpet as she gave vent to this amiable
outburst.

There was nothing more of Georgie or Miss Overton in the letter, but
Edna had read enough to make her very happy. Roy thought she was
beautiful, and called her “Brownie” to himself. Surely this was
sufficient cause for happiness, even though his marriage with another
was fixed for the ensuing spring. It was a long time till then, and she
would enjoy the present without thinking of the future, when Leighton
could no longer be her home.

This was Edna’s conclusion, and folding up Roy’s letter, she went to
Mrs. Churchill with so bright a look in her face, that it must have
shown itself in her manner, for Mrs. Churchill said:

“You seem very happy this morning. You must have had good news in the
letter Russell brought you.”

“Yes; very good news. At least, a part of it was,” Edna replied, her
pulse throbbing a little regretfully, as she remembered having seen, in
Roy’s own handwriting, that he was pledged to another,—he who called her
“Brownie,” and who, as the days went by, was so very kind to her, and
who, once, when she was standing beside him, laid his hand upon her
hair, and said:

“What a little creature you are! One could toss you in his arms as
easily as he could a child.”

“Suppose you try,” said a smooth, even-toned voice, just behind him, and
the next moment Georgie appeared in view, her black eyes flashing, but
her manner very composed and quiet.

After that, Roy did not touch Edna’s hair, or talk of tossing her in his
arms. Whatever it was which Georgie said to him with regard to Miss
Overton,—and she did say something,—it availed to put a restraint upon
his manner, and caused him to keep to himself any wishes he might have
with regard to Edna. But he watched her when she went out, and when she
came in, and listened to her voice when reading or singing to his
mother, until there would, at times, come over him such a feeling of
restlessness,—a yearning for something he could not define,—that he
would rush out into the open air, or, mounting his swift-footed steed,
ride for miles down the river road, until the fever in his veins was
abated, when he would return to Leighton, and, if Georgie was there, sit
dutifully by her, and try to behave as an engaged man ought to do, and
get up a little enthusiasm for his bride-elect. But whether he held
Georgie’s white jewelled hand in his, as he sometimes did, or felt her
breath upon his cheek, as she leaned her beautiful head upon his breast
in one of her gushing moods, he never experienced a glow of feeling like
that which throbbed through every vein did “Brownie’s” soft, dimpled
hands by any chance come in contact with so much as his coat-sleeve, or
“Brownie’s” dress sweep against his feet when he was walking with her.

He did not ask himself whither all this was tending. He did not reason
at all. He was engaged to Georgie; he fully intended to keep his
engagement; he loved her, as he believed, but that did not prevent his
being very happy in Miss Overton’s society; and as the days went by he
drifted farther and farther from his betrothed, who, with all her
shrewdness, was far from suspecting the real nature of his feelings.

During all this time, no answer had come from Edna to Roy, who wrote
again and again, until he grew desperate, and resolved upon a second
visit to Aunt Jerry Pepper, hoping by bribe or threat to obtain some
clue to Edna’s whereabouts. This intention he communicated by letter to
the worthy spinster, who replied:

“Don’t for goodness’ sake come here again on that business, and do let
Edna alone. She nor no other woman is worth the powder you are wasting
on her. If she don’t answer your letter, and tell you she’s in the
seventh heaven because of your engagement, it’s pretty likely she ain’t
thrown off her balance with joy by it. She didn’t fancy that woman with
a boy’s name none too well when she saw her in Iona, and if I may speak
the truth, as I shall, if I speak at all, it was what she overheard that
person say to her brother about you and your mother’s opinion of poor
girls like her, that kept her from going to Leighton with the body, and
it’s no ways likely she’ll ever go now, so long as the thing with the
boy’s name is there as mistress. So just let her alone and it will work
itself out. Anyway, don’t bother me with so many letters, when I’ve as
much as I can do with my house-cleaning, and making over comforters, and
running sausages.

                                    “Yours to command,
                                                “JERUSHA AMANDA PEPPER.”

It was Roy’s duty to feel indignant toward one who called his wife
elect, “that thing with a boy’s name,” and he made himself believe he
was, and styled her a very rude, impertinent woman, and then he thought
of what she had said about Edna’s disapproval of the match, and of
Georgie’s treatment of her in Iona, and that hurt him far worse than
Miss Pepper’s calling his betrothed “that thing with the boy’s name.”

What could Georgie have said or done to Edna? She had always seemed so
kindly disposed toward the girl, and since their engagement had warmly
seconded his plan of finding her, and bringing her home. Once he thought
to speak to Georgie herself on the subject, but generously refrained
from doing so, lest she should be pained by knowing there was any one
who was not pleased with the prospect of her being his wife. But
Georgie, who was not overscrupulous with regard to other people’s
property, found the letter on the library table, where he left it, and
unhesitatingly read it through, and then that same afternoon took
occasion, in Edna’s presence, to ask Roy if he had heard from his sister
yet, and to express herself as _so_ sorry that they could not find where
she was.

“Poor little creature, so young and so childlike as she seemed when I
saw her at Iona,” she said, flashing her great eyes first upon Roy and
then upon Miss Overton. “And so shy too of strangers. Why, I almost
fancied that she was afraid of _me_, she was so timid and reserved, and
possibly she was, for in my excitement I might have been a little
brusque in my manner.”

“I do not remember asking if you urged her to come here at that time,”
Roy said, thinking of Miss Pepper’s letter, while Georgie, thinking of
it too, replied without the least hesitation:

“Certainly, I did. I said all I could consistently say; but she was too
sick to undertake the journey, and then she had a nervous dread of
meeting Charlie’s friends. I’ve since thought it possible that she was
too much stunned and bewildered to know exactly what was said to her, or
what we meant by saying it.”

Georgie had made her explanation, and effectually removed from Roy’s
mind any unpleasant impression which Aunt Jerry’s letter might have left
upon it. And she was satisfied; for it did not matter _what_ Edna
thought of her; and still Georgie could not then meet the wondering gaze
of the brown eyes fixed so curiously upon her; and she affected to be
very much interested and occupied with a cap she was finishing for Mrs.
Churchill, and did not look at Edna, who managed to escape from the room
as soon as possible, and who, out in the yard, had recourse to her old
trick of digging her heels into the gravel by way of relieving her
feelings.

Roy made one effort more to win over Miss Pepper, but with so poor
success that he gave the matter up for a time, and devoted himself to
trying to get up a passion for his betrothed equal to that she felt for
him, and to studying and enjoying Miss Overton, who became each day more
bewildering and enjoyable for him, while to Mrs. Churchill she became
more and more necessary, until both wondered how they had ever existed
without her.




                             CHAPTER XXXVI.
                             ANNIE HEYFORD.


Early in November the Burtons went back to their city home on Madison
Square; and Edna was looking forward to a long, delightful winter alone
with Roy. But Georgie decreed it otherwise. It was of no use to be
engaged, and not have her lover at her disposal when she wanted him; and
so she kept up a continual siege, until Mrs. Churchill signified her
willingness, and even her wish, to spend a portion of the winter in New
York, where she could have the best of medical advice for her eyes, that
being one of Georgie’s strongest arguments. Roy had sold his house in
Fifth avenue the year before; and, as the elegant residence far up-town,
on which Georgie had fixed her mind, was not now available, he had a
suite of rooms in that prince of hotels, the Worth House, where his
mother could have all the luxuries and all the quiet of a private house,
with none of its annoyances.

And thither, in December, he came with his mother, and Miss Overton, and
his mother’s waiting-maid. It was late in the afternoon when they
arrived, and took possession of their handsome rooms looking out on
Madison Square; and, as in duty bound, Roy called at once upon his bride
elect, who lived not far away. She did not know of his arrival in town,
and seemed surprised and a little flurried at seeing him. She had not
expected him for a week or more; and all through the interview she was
confused and absent-minded; and her thoughts were less with her lover
than with little Annie, who up in her room was waiting her return, and
wishing so much that she could see the gentleman whom “sister” was to
marry.

Georgie had never been in the habit of visiting Jersey City often; but
she had gone there immediately after her return to town in November, and
had felt shocked at the great change perceptible in Annie. It was not so
much a wasting of the flesh as a spiritualization of the whole face,
which shone, as the faces of angels are supposed to shine, and which
looked as if its owner were already through with the things pertaining
to earth, and was realizing the joys of heaven.

“Tired all the time,—that’s all,” Annie said, when Georgie bent over her
and asked what ailed her darling.

“Tired,—so tired,” was all the child complained of; but it was evident
to those who knew her that she was rapidly passing away; and Georgie saw
it too, and her tears fell like rain, as she sat by Annie’s couch, and
listened to her childish talk.

“And you are to be married, Georgie?” Annie said; “and Jack will be
married, too; and he has brought Maude to see me; and I loved her so
much right away; and I am glad for Jack. But, Georgie, mayn’t I stay
part of the time with you when you are married to Mr. Leighton? I should
be so ’streemly happy there, seeing you every day.”

There was something very pleading in the tone of the voice; and
Georgie’s lip quivered as she replied: “Yes, darling, you shall. I’ll
have a nice room fitted up next to mine, and I’ll call it Annie’s Room,
and put so many pretty things in it.”

And then, by way of amusing the child, Georgie told how she would
furnish that room which was to be Annie’s, picturing such a fairyland
that Annie’s eyes shone like stars as she exclaimed, “It will be most as
good as heaven, where I am going before long; but not till I’ve lived a
little bit of a while in that splendid room. O Georgie, I don’t want to
die till I’ve been there. And you won’t forget, will you?”

Then she talked of Roy, and asked Georgie to bring him there some day;
and Georgie promised that she would, without meaning at all what she
said. She was very morbid upon the subject of an interview between Annie
and her lover, so long as he was her lover. Once his wife, she should
not care so much, she thought; and she was really in earnest in thinking
that Annie should spend a portion of the time with her. Roy knew there
was such a child; that in some way she was connected with the family,
and that she called Georgie her sister; but he had never evinced any
special interest in her, and Georgie did not mean that he should until
she chose to have him. So when Annie asked if she might go over to New
York at once, and spend a few days at Mrs. Burton’s, Georgie hesitated,
and calculated the chances of Roy’s coming to see her, deciding finally
that she was safe, and promising Annie that she should go if Jack was
willing. He was willing, and was more friendly and cordial with Georgie
than he had been before since her engagement. He always liked her best
when she was interested in Annie, and he assented readily to the visit;
and Georgie appointed the next day to come for the little girl. But one
of the sinking turns to which the child was subject came on to prevent
the visit, which was deferred until December, when it at last occurred;
and Annie had been a week with Georgie, and was intending to stop a few
days longer, when Roy suddenly made his appearance, and the visit was at
an end.

Georgie could scarcely define to herself why she dreaded so much to have
Roy see her sister; and when she received his card, and knew he was
waiting for her in the parlor below, her first impulse was to bring him
up at once to her room, and have the interview over; but with that
impulse there came a feeling that she could not stand by Roy and see him
talking so kindly to Annie as he would, without suffering such pangs of
remorse and anguish as she was not willing voluntarily to incur. And so
she merely said to him, when he remarked that she looked pale and tired,
“I am a little worn, I guess. I have had Annie, my adopted sister, you
know, here for a week or more, and, as she is a great invalid, it has
kept me closer in my room than was altogether for my health. How is your
mother? And are you comfortable at the Worth House? Though of course you
are. I went through the rooms the other day, and almost envied you. Such
elegance, with so much of home-comfort, is not to be found elsewhere in
New York, or, one may almost say, in the world,—such a gentlemanly host
as the man in charge, and then the proprietor himself. I went down into
the bookstore, to get some note-paper I did not want, for the sake of
seeing him. One of his authors has styled him the ‘Royal George,’ and he
is fully entitled to the name. I wish I knew him intimately. I must
manage it somehow, if I have to write a book.”

She was talking very fast, for the sake of driving all remembrance of
Annie from Roy’s mind; but the ruse did not succeed, for, as soon as she
ceased, Roy proposed taking herself and Annie for a drive to the park.

“It will do you good,” he said, “and the little sick girl too. I’ve
never seen her, you know; and I would like to make the acquaintance of
all my relatives.”

He spoke playfully; and Georgie’s face flushed for a moment with
pleasure at his allusion to their projected marriage, then grew pale
again and troubled, as she declined the invitation both for herself and
Annie. The latter was not well enough to bear the ride, she said,
(forgetting that she had promised to take her there that very
afternoon,) while _she_ felt it her duty to stay and amuse the child,
who was so fond of her. And so, Roy, thinking how self-sacrificing she
was, and liking her the better for it, bade her a more affectionate
adieu than usual, and drove his mother and Edna to the park that
afternoon, never dreaming of the bitter disappointment which filled poor
Annie’s heart, when told in Georgie’s most honeyed tones that it would
be impossible for her to fulfil the promise of a ride, as her head was
aching so hard, and she felt too sick to go out.

The largest, handsomest doll on Broadway was bought next morning as a
peace offering to Annie; and then, as Georgie found that she owed a call
in Jersey City, and would pass directly by Jack’s house, she suggested
that Annie should go with her and see Aunt Luna, while she was making
her call.

“You can come back with me if you like,” she said, smoothing the silken
hair, and thinking how she would manage to prevent the coming back, in
case Annie took a fancy to do so.

But Annie did not; her own home and easy chair looked so pleasant to
her, and Luna was so glad to have her back again, that she at once
expressed a wish to stay, and Georgie bade her a loving good-by, and
drove directly to the ferry, leaving the call which had existed only in
her imagination unmade!

That night Georgie went to the opera with Roy and Miss Overton, and
occupied the most conspicuous seat in the box, and was more admired and
commented upon than any lady in the audience, as she sat flushed, and
brilliant, and beautiful, with diamonds on her neck and arms, and in her
flowing hair. Roy was sufficiently attentive, and, proud of her position
as his betrothed, she carried herself regally, and felt a very queen,
as, leaning on Roy’s arm, she made her way through the crowd after the
play was over.

Close behind her, as she emerged into the open air, came another
figure,—the figure of a man, who, all through the play, had watched the
glowing beauty, with a look upon his bad face, which, had Georgie seen
it, would have driven her to the verge of insanity. But Georgie did not
see it, or dream of the shadow following her so fast, just when her sky
was brightest, and her triumph seemingly sure. She _did_ think of Annie,
however, when she reached her room, and saw the little bed where the
child had lain, and the thinking of her kept her from praying, as was
her nightly custom.

She could not pray with Annie’s face before her, as it looked when told
that the Park must be given up, and she lay awake a long time trying to
quiet her conscience by thinking how much she would do for Annie when
once she was Mrs. Roy Leighton, with no fear of anything either in the
past or future. She did not go to see Annie as she had promised to do.
Her time was _so_ occupied with Mrs. Churchill and Roy, and all her
fashionable duties, besides which Mrs. Burton was about to give a party,
which, for costliness and elegance, was to surpass anything which had
been or would be seen in New York that winter.

Maude, on whose taste and skill in many matters both Mrs. Burton and
Georgie relied, had obtained a vacation of a few days, and was busy with
Georgie’s dress, which was made in the house, where the ladies could
give it their hourly inspection if they chose. Edna, who was to be
included in the invitations sent to the Worth House, was also eager, and
expectant, and supremely happy in the beautiful gauzy fabric which Mrs.
Churchill had presented to her, and which was made by a fashionable
_modiste_. It would be her first introduction to New York society, as
seen at a brilliant party, and though she dreaded it somewhat, she was
looking forward to it with eager anticipations, and was frequently in
earnest consultation with Maude, who, like herself, was flushed, and
excited, and happy.

The cards were already issued, and but two days intervened before the
appointed night, when Georgie suddenly appeared at the Worth House, and
asked to see Miss Overton. She was very pale, and there were traces of
great mental agitation and distress in her manner, as she proceeded at
once to her errand. A note had just come from Jack, who wrote that Annie
was dangerously ill, and desired to see Georgie as soon as possible,
while he too joined in the sick child’s request, and wished his sister
to bring several little delicacies which he named, and which he could
not well find in Jersey City.

“It is impossible for me to go, with my dress and everything in its
present condition, and the party to-morrow night,” Georgie said,
“neither can I spare Maude, and as it does seem necessary that Jack
should have some woman there besides Aunt Luna, I came to see if you
would be kind enough to go over just for to-day. You can, of course,
return to-morrow, when Annie will, I am sure, be better. Jack is easily
frightened, and has, no doubt, exaggerated the case. Will you go, Miss
Overton, if Mrs. Churchill can spare you?”

She was holding Edna’s hand, and squeezing it affectionately; in fact,
she had held and squeezed it ever since she commenced talking, and she
was so urgent and anxious, that Edna consented, feeling a genuine
pleasure in the prospect of seeing the little girl who had been her
pupil for a short time, and in whom she had been so much interested.

“Thank you so much. You don’t know how you have relieved me, for I know
you will do everything that is necessary, and Mrs. Churchill says you
are a capital nurse,” Georgie said, kissing Edna twice, and promising to
send the carriage round at once with the articles Jack had ordered.

Edna had never seen Annie since she left Chicago, and she got herself in
readiness immediately, and in less than an hour was standing in Jack
Heyford’s house, and explaining to him why she had come instead of
Georgie.

“Not coming! Sent you in her place?” he repeated, appearing more angry
and excited than Edna had ever before seen him. “She is a hard,
unnatural woman, and if Heaven lets her prosper, I shall lose my faith
in everything I have been taught to respect,” he said, grinding his
teeth together as he uttered the words, which seemed almost like a curse
upon the proud girl, who at that very moment was trying on her party
dress, and calculating the effect upon her guests when she appeared
before them in her costly and becoming robes.

Still she did not forget Annie, and all the day long there was a dull,
heavy pain in her heart, and a foreboding of evil, which at last
prompted her to tell Maude of the note from Jack, and to ask her as a
favor to go herself to Jersey City, and bring news of the sick girl. It
was the first Maude had heard of Annie’s danger, and she opened her eyes
wide with wonder and surprise, as she asked:

“Why not go yourself, Georgie? Not that I am unwilling, but Annie wants
_you_. Neither Miss Overton nor myself will answer the purpose.”

“I can’t,” Georgie replied. “I might ride over this evening, if I was
sure of coming back, but once there, Annie and Jack both would insist
upon my staying through the night, and you know just how loss of sleep
affects my nerves and spirits.”

“And looks,” Maude added, sarcastically, knowing that this was the real
key to the whole matter.

Georgie must be fresh and bright for the next evening’s party; Georgie
could not afford to peril her beauty by nursing a sick child who wanted
her, and so she made herself believe that there was no immediate danger
threatening the little girl, and she staid at home, and sent Maude in
her stead, with injunctions to pass the night, if necessary, but to send
back a correct account of Annie’s condition, and excuse her to Jack as
far as practicable.

“More comfortable, but very sorry not to see you. I shall stay all
night, as will Miss Overton, also. Please get word to Mrs. Churchill.”

This was Maude’s message, which Georgie read aloud to Roy, whose
interest in Annie’s illness arose more from the fact that it had taken
and was keeping Miss Overton away; and, handsome and elegant as were his
rooms at the Worth House, they were not quite the same without the hired
companion.

“I hope Miss Overton will not think of sitting up to-night. She does not
seem very strong, and I want her to be as fresh as possible for the
party,” he said, and his manner betrayed even more annoyance than his
words.

There was a threatening look in Georgie’s eyes, and a very little
impatience in her voice, as she said:

“I suppose I ought to have gone myself, and so spared Miss Overton.”

“Certainly not,” Roy said, earnestly. “It is more to me that you should
look your best, and watching is not conducive to that. I trust, however,
that nothing will keep Miss Overton to-morrow.”

He would persist in bringing in Miss Overton, and Georgie fumed with
inward rage and hate of the girl at that very moment bending over
Annie’s couch, and wiping the moisture from the pale, damp forehead.

Annie was very sick; so sick indeed, that although she expressed
pleasure at seeing Edna, she manifested no surprise and did not ask
where she came from. Neither did she say much when told that Georgie had
not come, but with a low, moaning cry she turned her face to the wall,
while her body trembled with the sobs she tried to suppress. When Maude
came she seemed better, and nestling close to her, laid her head upon
her arm and appeared to sleep quietly.

And while she slept, or seemed to, Jack freed his mind with regard to
Georgie’s selfishness. It had always been so, he said. She had left to
others what she ought to have done herself.

“Why, my mother, who was in no ways connected to Annie, did far more for
her than Georgie, even when she lived at home,” he said, and then the
great blue eyes opened wonderingly, and fixed themselves upon Jack’s
face, while Annie said faintly:

“Your mother—not mine too,—Jack? Did you say that?”

Jack was in a hard, desperate mood, and reckless of consequences, he
replied:

“I did say it. Your mother was a far different woman from mine.”

“Oh, Jack,” and Annie put both her hands beseechingly toward him. “Oh
Jack, who was mother, then, and where is she now, tell me?” she cried,
while Maude and Edna both looked up reprovingly, and the former said:

“How could you be so imprudent, Jack, and she so sick and weak?”

“Because I’m a brute, I suppose, and feel sometimes like blurting out
things I must not say,” Jack replied, as he tried to quiet Annie, who
insisted upon knowing “who and where her mother was.”

“Ask Georgie, she may tell you, but I cannot,” Jack answered her at
last, and with that reply Annie had to be satisfied.

Both Maude and Edna staid by her during the night, forgetful of their
own fatigue, and scarcely giving a thought to the brilliant party of the
next evening, or the worn, tired faces they would carry to it, provided
they went at all, which seemed very doubtful, as the daylight came
creeping into the room, and showed them the change in their patient. She
was not dying; she might linger for two or three days longer, the
physician said, when at sunrise he came, but there was the sign of death
upon her face, and she lay perfectly motionless, only speaking
occasionally to ask what time it was; if it was to-night the party was
to take place, and if Georgie would surely come after it was over. Her
absorbing thought was to see Georgie once more, or “sister,” as she
still called her, for the idea did not seem to have entered her mind
that Georgie was not her sister, even though the kind woman whom she
remembered well had not been her mother.

Once, as Maude started to leave the bedside for a moment, Annie grasped
her hand and said to her:

“You won’t go too and leave me; nor you?” turning an appealing glance at
Edna, then quickly adding: “Yes, you must, you may; you want to see the
party, and you’ll tell how Georgie looked, and bring her back with you.”

But neither Maude nor Edna had any heart for gay festivities then; that
white face with the stamp of death upon it would be ever present in
their minds, and each came simultaneously to the same conclusion. They
could not leave Annie, and so a hasty note was written by Maude and
dispatched to Madison Square, saying that though Annie was not in
immediate danger, neither Miss Overton nor herself could think of
leaving her unless their services were absolutely required in New York.
Would Georgie see Mrs. Churchill for Miss Overton, and if possible send
word to Jersey if she was comfortable, and was willing to be left alone
another day.

Georgie read this note in her own room, and when she saw that Annie was
no worse, an involuntary, “Thank God!” dropped from her lips, while her
next remark was, “I knew Jack was more alarmed than he need be,—he
always is;” and then she was conscious of a mean feeling of relief that
Edna was to be absent that evening. The girl was too beautiful and
attractive not to be noticed and admired, while Roy was altogether too
much interested in her; and Georgie ground her teeth together as she
recalled certain looks she had seen him give to “that hypocrite.”

Mrs. Burton was greatly disappointed that Maude was not coming back; she
depended so much upon her, she said, to fill up the gaps and amuse all
the dull, prosy people. But Georgie quieted her down, and promised to do
her own part and Maude’s too, then went herself to see Mrs. Churchill,
who, in a different way, was quite as sorry about Edna as Mrs. Burton
had been about Maude.

“She is anticipating so much, and her dress is so pretty, and she is so
sure to be appreciated and admired, that I cannot bear to have her lose
it all,” she said, smoothing fondly the gauzy folds of the party dress,
which had been sent home, and was spread out upon her bed.

Georgie was _so_ sorry, too, and felt almost as if she must go herself
to Jersey, and take Dotty’s place, only Aunt Burton would not hear of
it; and it _was_ a great relief to know that Annie was being cared for
by nurses as efficient and kind as Maude and dear Miss Overton; neither
of whom should lose anything by their unselfish kindness.

This was what Georgie said, and her voice was sweet, and low, and sad,
and she kissed Mrs. Churchill tenderly, and bade her come over early,
and then tripped back to the house on Madison Square, where the
preparations for the coming night were going rapidly forward.




                            CHAPTER XXXVII.
                        THE NIGHT OF THE PARTY.


Roy was not at home when Georgie came with the news of Edna’s intended
absence, and, when he heard it from his mother, he evinced more
dissatisfaction even than she had done, and finally after lunch drove
over to Jersey City, determined to bring Edna back.

She was surprised and glad to see him, and there was a flush on her
cheek, and a soft light in her brown eyes, which in spite of her worn,
tired look, made her very beautiful as she stood, with her hand in his,
in the reception room, listening to his anxious inquiries as to how she
had passed the night, and his intention of taking her home with him.

“Oh, I cannot do that,” she said. “I cannot leave Annie now. You don’t
know how sick she is, or you would not ask it.”

“But surely there are others whose duty it is more than yours to forego
their pleasure,” Roy rejoined, and Edna answered:

“She has no relatives except Mr. Heyford and Miss Burton, and she, you
know, cannot be here; and, as I will not leave Maude alone, I must stay.
I am sorry, for I did anticipate the party a little, but I think I am
doing right.”

Roy thought so too, and involuntarily pressed the hand which Edna had
all the time been quietly trying to withdraw from his grasp. He did not
urge her further, nor ask to see Annie. He was not specially interested
in the latter, save as he would be in any sick person: and just at that
particular time he felt her to be rather a _bother_, and wondered why
she need have been sick when he wanted Miss Overton at home.

“Don’t say anything to alarm Miss Burton, please,” Edna said to him as
he was about to leave. “We know she cannot come now, but to-morrow
morning we shall expect her sure.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

Rapidly the day passed to the inmates of No.—— Madison Square, where all
was bustle and excitement, and eager anticipation; and rapidly, too,
passed the day at No.—— in Jersey City, where Jack, and Maude, and Edna
watched the death-sign creeping slowly upon the face of the dying child.

All the afternoon she lay in a kind of stupor, never moving or speaking,
except occasionally to utter Georgie’s name; but about dark there came a
change,—a great restlessness, with a continual asking for sister and
mother.

“Oh! where and who was she? How shall I know her in heaven if I never
saw her here? How did she look? Tell me, Jack, was my mother beautiful?”
she asked, and Jack replied:

“Yes, damnably beautiful.”

The last was under his breath, and Annie only heard the first word, and
asked again:

“Beautiful as Georgie, Jack?”

A suppressed groan was Jack’s only reply as he paced up and down the
room, whispering to himself:

“Oh! why am I thus punished for _her_ sin? It has been so always. I have
suffered, and she has escaped. Is that just or right?”

He was questioning Heaven’s dealings with himself, when suddenly there
flashed into his mind the words, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith
the Lord,” and he paused quickly in his walk, with a half shudder, as he
thought how far from him was the wish for vengeance to overtake the
woman who had sinned, and for whom he had borne so much,—ay, and for
whom he was ready and willing to bear more, if need be. He would not
harm a hair of that beautiful head, and, with a softer look upon his
face, he went to Annie’s side, and soothed and quieted her until she
fell asleep, resting this time for half an hour or more. Then the
restlessness returned, accompanied with moments of delirium, in which
she called piteously for Georgie to hold her aching head.

“Her hands are so soft and cool, and rest me so, and I love her so much.
Go to her, Jack; tell her to come; tell her Annie is dying, and wants to
see her again. She said I should have the nice room when she was married
to Mr. Leighton, and I wanted to live so bad, and asked Jesus would He
let me; but I’m willing now, only I must see Georgie first.”

Thus she talked on until the clock was striking seven, and the attending
physician came in. He saw at once that she was dying, and as he listened
to her plaintive pleadings for Georgie, he said to Jack:

“If this Georgie can be reached, my advice is to reach her.”

Jack hesitated a moment, glanced at the white, wasted form upon the bed,
and then thought of the house on Madison Square, ablaze with light by
that time, and of the brilliant woman who was undoubtedly decking
herself in her fairest garb for the occasion, and whose black eyes would
flash so angrily, perhaps, should he go for her then.

“I can’t, I can’t,” he thought; but when the voice, fainter now than
when it spoke before, said again, “Has Jack gone for Georgie?” he went
to her and whispered: “Darling, I am going.”

“And you won’t come back without her? Promise, Jack.”

“No, I won’t come back without her; I swear it to you, Annie. I’ll bring
her, or not come myself.”

One kiss he pressed upon the white face, feeling that it might be the
last, and then rushing swiftly down the stairs, and out into the street,
he hailed the first car which passed, and was on his way to Madison
Square.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Georgie was dressed at last; every fold and flower, and curl, and jewel
was in its place, and she stood before her mirror, flushed with pride
and excitement, and thinking within herself that few that night could
compete with her in beauty, even if the first freshness of youth was
gone, and her face did show signs of maturity. Had Miss Overton been
there, Georgie felt that she might have had a rival, for there was a
wonderful power about the fair young girl to charm and fascinate. But
she was away, across the river, doing what Georgie should have done; and
when Georgie remembered that, she felt a pang of remorse, and wondered
how Annie was, and said to herself, with a shudder,

“What if she should die to-night! I never could get over it.”

There was a knock at the door, and the maid, who had left her a few
moments before, handed her Jack’s card. The bright color faded in an
instant from Georgie’s cheeks, as she felt what Jack’s presence there at
that time portended, and she leaned against her dressing-table heavily,
as she said:

“Tell him I will see him here.”

The girl departed with the message, and Georgie had time in which to
recover herself a little before Jack entered the room. She could not go
then, whatever might be the import of his errand, she had decided before
he came in; but she moved rapidly toward him, and asked:

“What is it, Jack? is Annie dead? Tell me quick,—the suspense is
horrible!”

“No, not dead, but dying, and keeps asking for you. So I came, though
sorely against my will, and I have sworn not to return without you. Will
you go!”

There was a sharp ring in his voice which exasperated Georgie, but she
put the feeling aside, and answered him:

“How can I go? You know it is impossible.” Then, as the realities of her
position began to impress themselves more and more upon her, she wrung
her hands in genuine distress, and cried: “Oh, why am I tortured so; I
wish I had died years ago. What made you come here now, when you know I
cannot go?”

She turned almost fiercely upon him, as if he had been in fault, but he
met her eyes unflinchingly, and replied:

“I told you Annie was dying; that is why I came. I shall not go back
without you.”

“Then you must wait,” she rejoined. “It is almost time for the guests to
come; I must be here to receive them. Maybe she will revive. Doctors do
not always judge aright. She may yet recover, or, at least, live for
days.”

“I tell you she was dying when I left her, else I had not come, knowing
you as I do,” Jack replied vehemently, and Georgie answered with a gush
of tears:

“I _cannot_ go until the party is over. Come for me then; come at two
o’clock, and I will be ready.”

He bowed in acquiescence and left the house, meeting, as he went out, a
group of ladies, whose gay dresses brushed against him on the steps, and
whose light laughter sounded like mockery in his ears. It was a glorious
night, and the _élite_ of New York turned out _en masse_ to honor Mrs.
Burton’s invitation, until the rooms were full, and the light jest and
merry repartee were heard on every side, and the gay dance began to the
sound of sweet music. And amid it all moved Georgie, a deep flush on her
cheek, and a glittering light in her eye, which attracted general
attention, and was the subject of much comment among the guests. It was
an insane, delirious kind of look, and Georgie _was_ nearly mad, as with
a heart full of bitter pain she tried to be natural, and smile upon
those around her as sweetly and pleasantly as if there was no skeleton
of death walking at her side, and pointing, with its bony fingers,
across the distant river to where Annie lay dying and begging for her.
She could hear the little voice even above the din of the gay throng,
and when Roy asked what was the matter that she seemed so absent-minded,
she felt for a moment as if she must shriek out her miserable secret
before them all, and tell them of that little child in Jersey. She had
spoken of her to many of the guests, and explained the cause of Maude’s
absence, but none of those who heard her guessed of the mental agony
endured by the beautiful woman who was envied by so many, as the
bride-elect of Roy Leighton, and the possessor of everything which can
make one happy.

The party was over at last; every guest had said good-night, and only
one carriage stood before the door. That had waited there an hour, and
while it waited the lights flashed out into the darkness, the soft music
sounded on the night air, and the merry feet kept time in the dance; the
driver nodded on his box, and the tall figure of a man walked up and
down; up and down,—always to the same lamp-post and back,—a worn,
anxious look upon his face, and an impatient, resentful expression in
his eyes whenever he glanced up at the blazing windows, and then
consulted his watch.

Jack had broken his vow not to return home without his sister. He had
tried waiting at the hotel; had sat an hour and could have sworn it was
ten; then with a feeling that he must know how it fared with Annie, had
re-crossed the ferry and gone to his home.

“Still alive, but failing fast, and asking for Georgie,” Maude had said
to him, and then he waited another hour and a half until the clock
struck twelve.

Georgie had said “come at two,” and so he went, and waited until the
last carriage drove away, and then his hand was on the door before the
tired servant could lock and bolt it.

“Did you leave anything, sir?” the man asked, thinking Jack one of the
recent guests.

“No; I came for Miss Burton. Say her brother is here,” Jack replied; but
before the message could be delivered Georgie was standing by him and
had heard the message: “Alive, but dying very fast. You have no time to
lose.”

And Georgie lost none. Speeding upstairs to her room she caught up a
long water-proof, and wrapping it around her, said to her astonished
maid:

“Tell mamma that Annie Heyford is dying; that my brother Jack came for
me before the party, and I promised to go as soon as it was over. She
must not be troubled about me. I shall come back or send some word in
the morning.”

“But your dress, Miss Burton! Surely, you will change that?” the girl
said, thinking her young mistress demented.

It was the first thought Georgie had given to her dress, and with a
shudder, as she drew up the folds of her elegant costume, she answered:

“I have not time to change it now. I told you she was dying.”

And so with the diamonds glittering on her neck and arms and shining in
her hair, Georgie went out to the carriage, where Jack put her in, his
impatience and resentment beginning to subside when he saw the deep
pallor of her face and the look of anguish in her eyes. Her head was
uncovered, and the flowers she had worn were there still, but Jack drew
the hood of her water-proof up over her hair, and adjusted it under her
chin with a carefulness and gentleness which brought a gush of tears
from Georgie, who had laid her head upon his shoulder, and said
sobbingly:

“You are kind, Jack; I don’t deserve that you should think of my
comfort.”

He did not reply, and the silence between them was not broken again
until Jersey City was reached. There had been a delay at the ferry, and
it was nearer four than three when Georgie stood at last by Annie’s
bedside.

She had thrown off her water-proof as she entered the house, or rather
handed it to Maude, who met her in the hall, and who stared in surprise
at the gay party dress, which seemed so out of place in that house of
death. But for once Georgie never thought of her dress, nor minded in
the least when her flowing lace caught on some projection and had a long
rent torn in it. And so, in all the splendor of diamonds, and satins,
and flowers, she floated into the sick room where Annie lay, breathing
heavily, but with a look of peace upon her face, which told that for her
all pain had ceased, except as it might return when the final struggle
came. She had not asked for Georgie for more than an hour, but the
instant the rustle of her sweeping garments, and the sound of her step
was heard, she opened her eyes and exclaimed joyfully:

“Georgie, sister, come at last.”

“Yes, darling; here at last, never to leave you again,” Georgie said,
as, stooping down, she gathered the little wasted form to her bosom and
held it there, while she cried over and kissed it passionately,
murmuring words of fond endearment such as made Edna, who was in the
room, look up in surprise. She had not imagined Georgie to be capable of
the deep feeling she was manifesting, and she felt a thrill of friendly
liking for the woman who could so love a little child.

“I wanted you so much,” Annie said, faintly, as she put her hand on
Georgie’s cheeks, “I am going to die,—Jack told you, maybe,—and I’ll
never be in that pretty room you said you’d fix for me; but I want you
to fix it all the same, and call it Annie’s room, and, if I can, I’ll
come sometimes to see you. You won’t hear me, or know it, perhaps, but I
guess it will be when the sun is the brightest, and the flowers are
blooming, and you are thinking of Annie; then I’ll be there with you.”

A cold shudder ran from the crown of Georgie’s head to her finger tips
as she listened to Annie’s plan of re-visiting her in the spirit, but
she only replied with a closer embrace and a rain of tears, which Annie
brushed away as she continued:

“I ain’t a bit afraid to die now, Georgie. I was at first, but I asked
Jesus so many times to take the fear away, and He has, and forgave me
all the naughty things I ever did,—the lies I used to tell, and the
exaggerations, which Jack said were bad as lies; and I’m going to
Heaven, where you’ll come some time, sister, won’t you?”

“Oh, Annie, my darling, my darling, I don’t know; I am afraid not.
Heaven is not for such as I am,” Georgie cried, piteously, while Annie
continued:

“Why, sister? yes it is; and you are real good, and you’ll come some
day, and find me waiting for you right by the door; but, Georgie,”—and
Annie’s lip began to quiver as there suddenly recurred to her mind the
perplexing question which had troubled her so a few hours before, and
which Jack had said Georgie might answer,—“but, Georgie, lay me down,
please; on the pillow, so,—that’s nice; and now tell me where is my
mother,—if Jack’s and your mother was not mine.”

The great blue eyes of the child were fixed intently upon Georgie, who
started and staggered backward as if smitten with a heavy blow. Edna had
stolen from the room, and only Jack was there, sitting in a distant
corner. To him Georgie turned quickly, and asked, under her breath:

“What does this mean? Who has been disturbing her?”

“It was the merest accident,” Jack said, coming forward at once. “A
chance remark I made about her not being mother’s own child. _Your
secret_ is safe, if that is what you fear.”

He said the last in a low tone, and then walked back to his seat upon
the sofa. For a few moments Annie lay quiet, and Georgie hoped she might
have forgotten that her question was unanswered, but she soon roused up
and returned to the subject so painful to Georgie.

“How will I know my mother if I never saw her here, and don’t know how
she looks nor who she was?” she said, and her eyes held as by a spell
poor remorseful Georgie’s, who faltered out:

“Your mother is not in Heaven, Annie.”

“Not in Heaven?” and the paroxysm of terror was something fearful to
witness as Annie writhed upon her pillow. “Where is she then? Not in the
bad place? Not there? My mother! Oh Georgie, oh Georgie.”

Every word was a moan as the frightened child clutched Georgie’s hand
and demanded of her whether her mother was lost forever. She did not
seem to remember that she must have had a father, too; it was all “my
mother, my mother,” until Georgie could bear it no longer, and said to
her in a whisper:

“Your mother is not dead. She is living somewhere.”

“Then why don’t she come to see me? Mothers always take care of their
sick little girls, don’t they?” Annie asked, and Jack, who could see the
anguish written on his sister’s face, pitied her as he had never done
but once before in his life.

“Oh, Annie, you break my heart; don’t ask me about your mother. I
cannot, cannot tell. Oh, Father in Heaven, this is worse than death,”
Georgie moaned, as she knelt upon the floor by Annie’s bed and covered
her face with her hands.

But amid her pain she did not forget to be cautious, and said to Jack,
“Please shut the door. I cannot have witnesses to my degradation.”

He did as she bade him, and then said to her: “Had you been open,
Georgie, from the first, this would have been spared to you.”

Perhaps he was wrong to chide her then when her cup of wretchedness was
full. She thought so at least, and replied to him:

“Don’t taunt me now; don’t try to make my agony greater than it is. I
could not bear another jot. And, Jack, let me tell you, that truly as I
live, there’s nothing I would not do to save Annie’s life.”

“Nothing?” Jack said, questioningly.

His tone roused Georgie to such an unnatural state that she replied to
him: “No, nothing; and here I swear that if Heaven will spare Annie’s
life and give her back to me, I’ll tell Roy everything. Yes, everything.
I mean it. Father in Heaven, hear me, hear the vow I make. Give me
Annie’s life and I’ll tell everything. Try me and see.”

She was praying now, while Annie, bewildered by what she had heard,
looked first at her and then at Jack, saying imploringly:

“Tell what, Georgie? What does it mean? It makes me so dizzy and faint.
Is it about my mother, and why she don’t come when I am dying?”

There was no response to this, and Annie pleaded again:

“Where is she, Jack? Don’t she love me any? Oh if I could see her once
and hear her voice, and put my head in her lap, and call her mother, I’d
pray to Jesus to make her good and let her come to Heaven if she was
ever so bad. Was she bad, Georgie? Was my mother naughty?”

It was a strange spectacle, that white-faced, dying child, stretching
her trembling hands toward that gayly-decked, but crushed, stricken
woman, and demanding some knowledge of her mother, and Georgie shrunk
back from the touch of the little hands, and wiped the sweat-drops from
her own pallid face, and turned toward Jack as if for help in her
distress. But Jack was powerless then; it was her hour of agony and she
must meet it alone.

Suddenly there broke over her countenance a light as of some
newly-formed resolution, and with a gasp she said to her brother:

“Go out, Jack, please, and leave us here alone. Keep them all away till
I call to you to come. Annie is mine, now; mine; all mine.”

She seemed more like a crazed creature, when, after Jack was gone, she
bolted the door, and even looked out into the wintry night, as if
fearing listeners there. But she grew calm again, and her voice, though
low and sad, was tolerably steady in its tone as she sat down by Annie
and said:

“Ask me anything you please, and I will answer you.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

Half an hour passed away, and the three waiting below heard the low
murmur of voices,—one of surprise and eager inquiry, the other,
mournful, heartbroken, and, as Jack knew, full of bitter shame. Then
there was a sound of sobbing, with broken sentences of love, and then
another silence, followed by a hasty call for Jack to come quickly.

They were in the room in a moment, and each one was struck with the
expression of Annie’s face, where wonder and surprise, sorrow and
compassion, with love unutterable, were blended together. Tender and
pitiful as is a mother towards her suffering child, she seemed toward
Georgie, and though she could not speak, her eyes were fastened upon the
head bowed down at her side, and her hands kept caressing the tangled
curls which lay upon the bedclothes.

“Annie, you are almost home,” Maude said, bending over her and kissing
her white brow.

Annie nodded and raised her eyes once upon them all, as if in a
farewell; then her head drooped lower and lower upon her breast; while
her hand still smoothed and fondled Georgie’s hair. A moment went by
which seemed an hour, then over the dying child there passed a shudder
of pain; the hand ceased its caressing motion, and buried itself in the
mass of hair; the eyes glanced upward, and the quivering lips said,
brokenly, “Thank you, Jesus, I have seen my mother,” and then Annie was
dead.

Old Luna, who was present, responded, “Yes, blessed lamb, no doubt her
mother did come to meet her. It’s apt to be the case.”

This was Luna’s solution of Annie’s last words, while Maude had a
different one; and when they were alone and Edna said to her, “Do you
believe Annie’s mother was with her when she died?” She answered, “_I
know_ she was!”




                            CHAPTER XXXVIII.
                          AFTER ANNIE’S DEATH.


Mrs. Burton had been greatly distressed at the account given her by the
servant of Miss Georgie’s going off in her party dress, without so much
as telling her, and naturally enough felt a very little annoyed with the
cause of her pet’s anxiety.

“That child will be the death of Georgie,” she said to her husband; and
when he asked, “Who is she, any way, and what is she to Georgie?” she
hardly knew what to reply, for she did not herself know just what Annie
was to Georgie. “Not much, any way, second or third cousin,” she
guessed; and then she bemoaned Georgie’s kind, tender, affectionate
nature, which made her love everything young and helpless. She should go
over in the morning herself, she said: and accordingly, as early as nine
o’clock, she started for Jersey City, with a box of clothing for
Georgie, who, with her water-proof wrapped around her uncovered
shoulders, sat by the couch of the dead child, with a strange stony look
upon her face, and in her red, swollen eyes.

She had not shed a tear since Annie died, and her own hands had made the
little form ready for the grave.

“Don’t touch her; she is mine; I will do all myself,” she had said,
almost fiercely, to Aunt Luna, when she first came in to care for the
body.

She had also rejected Maude’s and Edna’s offers of assistance, and they
had left her alone with her dead, and her own bitter thoughts, which
nearly drove her mad, as she washed the little hands, and remembered
when she had first felt their touch, and the thrill that touch had sent
through every nerve. Then they were warm and soft, and she could have
crushed them in her palm. Now they were cold and stiff, and she kissed
them passionately, and drew the dainty white sleeves over the wasted
arms, and combed, and brushed, and curled the silken hair, and felt glad
that death had not robbed Annie of her beauty, as she finally laid her
upon the couch, and then sat down beside her, unmindful that her rich
dress was soiled and defaced, and her lace torn in more places than one.
She took the tea and toast Jack brought her, because she knew he would
insist until she ate, but she would not leave the room, and Mrs. Burton
found her there, and called her a “poor dear,” and wondered at her
grief, and felt half glad that the child was gone at last out of
Georgie’s reach.

“I shall stay here till after the funeral,” she persisted, in replying
to her aunt’s entreaties for her to go back to New York; and when Mrs.
Burton asked where Annie was to be buried, she answered, “In Greenwood,
of course.”

“Has your brother a lot there?” was Mrs. Burton’s next question; and
Georgie replied:

“No, but he can have.”

And after her aunt was gone she went to her brother, and giving him a
costly diamond ring, said to him:

“It is my right and wish to bury Annie, and bear the whole expense.
Convert the ring into money and see to it for me. I want her laid in
Greenwood.”

“In any particular spot?” Jack asked; and Georgie answered him:

“Yes, there’s a vacant spot near _his_ grave. It has been there for
years.”

Jack bowed, and turned away so as not to see the hot blushes on his
sister’s face as she gave her orders for Annie’s burial.

That night Roy came himself to take Edna home. He was very sorry for
Georgie, but, like Mrs. Burton, wondered at her love and grief for the
little child.

“I would like to see the body. Can I?” he asked, and Georgie rose at
once, and went with him into the darkened room where Annie lay.

Carefully, gently, she put back the thin covering, and then stood by
Roy’s side while he looked upon the child.

“She must have been very beautiful in life; and there is a look on her
face like you,” he said to Georgie, noticing for the first time how she
shook as if in an ague chill. “You are sick; you have taken cold; this
must not be,” he said, and he put his arm around her to lead her from
the room.

But she held back, and laying one hand on the pale, dead face, grasped
Roy’s shoulder with the other, and exclaimed:

“Not yet, Roy; wait a moment, please; hear me first; let me—”

He did not believe she knew at all what she was saying, and he cut her
short and drew her forcibly away, just as she had, with a mighty effort,
nerved herself to tell him _why_ she had loved that little lifeless form
so well.

“I meant to, I meant to, and he would not hear me. Surely it is not
wrong to withhold it now,” she said to herself, when Roy had taken her
from the room; and then came a sense of relief that, after all, he did
not know, and she never need to tell. “Had she lived I would have kept
my vow, but now I am free from it,” she thought, and there was a
brighter look upon her face, and she moved about the house more like her
olden self, but Maude, who watched her closely, saw that she shuddered
every time Roy spoke pityingly to her, and that she seemed glad when at
last he started for home, taking Edna with him.

The funeral was the next day, and Mrs. Burton came over in her carriage,
and Roy came in his, bringing Edna and his mother with him. For once
Georgie put fashion aside, and shocked her aunt by announcing her
intention to go herself to Greenwood.

It was in vain that Mrs. Burton tried to dissuade her from it. She was
determined, and the lady finally gave it up, and said she would go too,
and take Mrs. Churchill and Edna in her carriage, suggesting that Roy go
with Georgie, and Jack with Maude. And so it came about that Roy went as
one of the chief mourners to Annie’s grave, and while the coffin was
lowered in the ground, and he stood near with uncovered head, he
glanced, by accident, at the tall head-stone beside him, and read upon
it:

“Richard Le Roy. Born in England, Jan. 5, 18—. Died in New York, Oct.
10, 18—. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.”

Roy read it twice, and thought within himself, “I never knew before
where Dick was buried. He was a pretty good fellow after all, but I
_don’t_ believe he ‘died in the Lord.’” And then Roy fell to wondering
how many inscriptions upon tombstones were true, and in so doing failed
to see how white and faint Georgie was, and how she trembled as she
passed that grave on her way back to the carriage. It was a strange
combination of things, Roy Leighton and Georgie Burton standing together
with Annie’s grave between them, and Richard Le Roy’s just behind, but
only two of the spectators knew _how_ strange, and these gave no sign as
they turned away and left the dead to their dreamless slumbers.

                  *       *       *       *       *

The remainder of the winter was passed by Georgie very quietly and
soberly. She was not well, and did not care to go out, she said, and she
declined all invitations to large parties, and staid mostly at home or
at the Worth House, with Mrs. Churchill, who liked her in this subdued
mood better than ever before. She never spoke of Annie, but she seemed a
good deal changed, and was really kind to Edna, except at times, when
Roy’s attentions in that quarter were a little too marked to suit her.
Then her black eyes would blaze with a look which threatened harm to
Miss Overton, who nevertheless enjoyed herself thoroughly, and passed a
most delightful winter. Roy was very kind to her, and it had soon become
known to his acquaintance that the pretty young lady seen with him so
often in public was more of an equal to and friend of his mother, than a
mere hired companion, and she was always included in the frequent
invitations which came to the Leightons for dinners, and receptions, and
parties, while it was a kind of mania with Mrs. Churchill to have her
favorite dressed becomingly, and go with Roy, even when she was obliged
to remain at home. And so in a certain way Miss Overton became a belle,
and was sought after and courted and admired almost as much as Georgie
herself.

Had she been an heiress, not fifty Georgies could have competed with
her; but, being poor, she had this advantage, that the attentions of the
male sex never became so serious as to require a check, and so she
enjoyed it all, and to Roy seemed to grow more and more beautiful every
day, while he even found himself at last growing jealous of the young
men who surrounded her in such numbers the moment she entered a room;
and he was glad when, toward the last of April, his mother signified her
wish to go back to Leighton. Edna was glad, too, of the change; for she
was pining for country air, and wanted so much to spend a few more
delicious weeks at Leighton before she left it forever.

The wedding had finally been arranged by Mrs. Burton to take place in
June, and as Mr. Burton had said that Maude should be married at the
same time, and not have “two fusses,” it was to be a double bridal, and
take place at Oakwood, whither the Burtons removed about the time that
Roy came back to Leighton.




                             CHAPTER XXXIX.
                    MAUDE AND EDNA VISIT UNCLE PHIL.


Uncle Phil had invited Maude and Edna to come up to the “old hut,” and,
two weeks after their return from New York, they went for a few days to
Rocky Point.

They found the old man not much changed from what he had been when they
saw him last. A little stouter, perhaps, and a little grayer he looked,
as, whip in hand, he stood waiting the arrival of the train, his face
all aglow with delight, when the two young girls appeared upon the
platform, looking so pretty and stylish in their new spring dresses,
that he involuntarily gave a kind of low whistle, and said under his
breath:

“Guy, ain’t they stunners? They beat Ruth Gardner all hollow. And look
at that gal’s ankles, will you; it’s enough to make a chap older than I
am crawl, to see such things,” he continued, as the tops of Maude’s
boots became visible in her descent from the car.

In a moment both the girls had caught him round the neck, making him
very red in the face, and “awful ticklish at the pit of his stomach,” as
they kissed him more than once, and then kept hold of his hands while
they asked him scores of questions.

“There,—there; yes, yes; let me be now, can’t you; yes, yes,” he said.
“I’m about strangled with your hugs and kisses, and I not used to it,
and the folks in the car lookin’ on. It’ll give a feller the dyspepsia
to have his digester so riled up. These your traps, hey? Look like
little housen; shall have to come back for ’em sure, for Bobtail can’t
carry all creation” he continued, as Maude pointed out her own and
Edna’s baggage.

Uncle Phil was very proud of his guests and very desirous to show them
off, and making an excuse to see a man about re-setting a light of
stained glass which some “tarnal boy had broken in one of the windows of
his synagogue,” he drove the entire length of the street on which
‘Squire Gardner lived, and felt repaid for his trouble when he saw Miss
Ruth looking at them from her chamber window. He did not find his man,
but “Ruth saw the gals and the gals’ _hats_, which he was so glad were
not such all-fired lookin’ things as she wore and tried to make folks
think was the fashion. Maybe ’twas with a certain class, but needn’t
tell him that fust cut, who knew what was what, wore such ’bominable
things. Why, Ruth’s hat looks jest like a tunnel with a ribbon tied
’round it,” he said to the young ladies, who accused him of having set
up as a critic in dress, Maude promising to show him some fashions,
“which would make him stare more than Ruth Gardner’s tunnel had done.”

They found the nicest, cosiest tea waiting for them, and Aunt Becky was
quite as much pleased to see them as Uncle Phil had been. The front
chamber was in perfect order, and Uncle Phil had tried his hand at a
bouquet, made from daffodils and evergreens, and arranged in a broken
pitcher.

They had come to spend a week, and the days flew rapidly, each one
seeming to Uncle Phil shorter and happier than the preceding one. He had
a great deal to tell them about his church, which was nearly completed,
and would be ready for consecration in August, when the bishop had
promised to be there.

“But I tell you what ’tis, gals,” he said, as he sat with them inside
the church, which he had been showing them, “if there’s anything makes a
chap feel like cussin’, it’s buildin’ a meetin’ house, and seein’ to it
yourself; not that I do swear right out loud,” he added, as he saw
Edna’s look of surprise. “I hold on till I git the hiccups, and feel at
my stomach some, as I do when you two are haulin’ me over, only not
quite so—so—tural-lural, you know; first, thar’s the Orthodox pitchin’
into me, and the Unitarians, who kind of claim me, you know; and then,
if you’ll b’leeve it, the Second Adventists held some meetin’s in the
school-house, and pitched right and left into my poor little chapel;
called it one of the _ten horns_, and a _ritual_, and the Lord knows
what; but the wust of all was the divinity chap from New York, who came
out here, and preached a spell last winter; sort of a candidate, though
he sniffed high at the idee, and said he’d never stoop to that. He
preached in the Town Hall, and Ruth Gardner came up from New York, where
she spent a month, with her head fuller of jimcracks than brains, and
she jined the Episcopals, and helped run the machine, and rolled her
eyes up till you could see nothin’ but the whites, and got after the
minister, and set to callin’ him ‘Father,’ when, bless my soul, he
wasn’t a half-a-dozen years older than she! And between ’em they raised
the very old Harry with their processions, and boys dressed like girls,
and flags, and crossin’s, and curtcheys, which they called
_Jenny_-something, and the land knows what they didn’t do or would have
done if I hadn’t raised a row, and said they could do what they liked in
the Town Hall, and go to the old driver with their flummeries, but in
_my_ synagogue I’d have no such carryin’s on. I was a miserable enough
sinner, and was willin’ to own it, and had done a lot of things I didn’t
orto have done, and when I went to meetin’, I wanted to hear now an’
then a word about that Man who died over on Calvary a good many years
ago, and not all about _the church_, _the church_, and the _fathers_,
and the _medival_ age. You orto have seen how the priest and Ruth
Gardner looked at me when I got right up in meetin’ and spoke my piece,
for, I vum, I couldn’t stan it when they give the bread and wine first
to widder Jones’s two little boys, the wust scamps in town, who rob
gardens, and orchards, and birds’-nests in the summer, and who, only the
day before, had broke my gate, and denied it up hill and down. I
couldn’t keep still no how, and freed my mind and quit, and the next day
the priest and Ruth called on me,—he in his long frock coat, and she
with a chain and cross as long as my arm, I’ll bet. They as’t me what I
_did_ believe, and I said I believed the Creed, word for word; and the
Bible, and the Prayer-Book; and more than all the rest, I believed in
the Man that died; and I knew He never had any such goin’s on in that
upper chamber, nor on the deck of the ship, nor up on the mountain, nor
in that house in Bethany where He loved to stay. Everything with Him was
simple and plain as A B C. When the folks was tired, and sick, and
sorry, He said, ‘Come to me and rest,’ and He didn’t drive ’em crazy
with forty-’leven ceremonies. ‘Come to _me_; believe on me, that I can
save you; that is all,’ and He will. I’m just as certain as that my name
is Philip. I’m a wicked old rat, but I do mean to be better; and I’ve
took to readin’ my Bible some, and I say the Lord’s Prayer every night
when I ain’t too sleepy.”

He was talking more to himself now than to the girls at his side, but
they both felt that though there was still much of poor sinful nature
clinging to the old man, he was making an effort to do better, and was
drawing nearer to Him whom he so touchingly spoke of as the “Man who
died.”

The building of the church had evidently been a great trouble to him,
but that was nearly over now.

The priest from New York had, soon after Uncle Phil’s “piece spoken in
meetin’,” given up Rocky Point in disgust, and returned to the city,
leaving the field clear for another man. That man Uncle Phil was
anxiously looking out for, as he said he meant to have things in running
order as soon as the house was consecrated.

It was a very pretty little edifice, and did credit to the good taste of
Uncle Phil, or his architect, or both. As yet he had no name for it.
Neither _St. Maude_ nor _St. Edna_ would do, and _St. Philip_, which
both girls proposed, sounded too egotistical.

“He wasn’t a saint,” he said, “and never should be, perhaps, and they
must try again.”

Then he asked, in a kind of indifferent way, the name of the church at
Allen’s Hill, where Edna had formerly attended. _St. Paul’s_ suited him
better, and he guessed “he’d have it christened after that curis chap
who had that thorn in the flesh.”

The next day when alone with Edna, he said to her:

“I kind o’ hoped at one time that you or Maude might be married first in
my new church, but she tells me there’s to be great doin’s at Oakwood
for her and that girl, George, who, it seems, is to marry Roy, when I’d
picked him for you.”

“For me?” and Edna’s cheeks were scarlet. “Roy would never think of me,
and, Uncle Phil, I want to tell you I can’t stay there after Miss Burton
comes. I made up my mind to that a long time ago.”

“Of course not,” Uncle Phil replied. “One house can’t hold three wimmen,
so come back to the old hut as soon as you please; there’s always a
place for you here. I shall be down to the weddin’, I s’pose; I promised
Maude I would, only you mustn’t try to put gloves on me, nor stick me
into a swallow-tail.”

Edna laughingly promised to let him have his own way in dress, and two
days after this conversation she said good-by to the old man, and, with
Maude, went back to Summerville, where the preparations for the great
event had commenced in earnest.




                              CHAPTER XL.
                     GETTING READY FOR THE BRIDAL.


Only once since Annie’s death had Maude and Edna spoken together of the
suspicion, amounting almost to a certainty, which had come to them both
as they watched Georgie Burton at Annie’s bedside. Then they had talked
freely, and settling one point as a fact, had wondered _when_, and
_where_, and _who_, and had both repelled the worst charge which can be
brought against a woman. Annie had been born in wedlock, they fully
believed; but if so, why so much reticence and mystery, they asked each
other; and did Roy know, or would he ever know the truth?

“Somebody ought to tell him, and I’ve half a mind to do it myself,”
Maude said; but Edna advised her to keep her own counsel, as after all
they knew nothing certainly.

Whatever Georgie might have been, she was greatly improved since Annie’s
death, and even the servants at Oakwood noticed how kind and gentle she
was to every one around her. She did not visit Leighton as much as
usual, and there was in her manner towards Roy a reserve, which became
her better than her former gushing style. And still Roy was not
satisfied, and often wondered at the feeling of _ennui_ he experienced
in her society, and the satisfaction he felt when he found her, as he
frequently did, suffering from headache, and unable to see him, leaving
him free to go back to Miss Overton, who never wearied him, but seemed
always fresh and new. Before he left New York he had been a great deal
with her, and he knew in his heart that the hours he enjoyed most were
those spent alone with “Brownie” after his mother had retired. He had no
intention of proving false to Georgie, and he did not stop to consider
the wrong he was doing both to his bride-elect and Edna, until his
mother gently hinted to him that possibly he might be doing harm by so
much attention to Miss Overton. Though nearly blind, she could judge
pretty well of what was passing around her, and could feel just how
anxious and expectant Edna was when Roy was not present, and how flushed
and excited and gay she became the moment he appeared, and she raised a
warning voice, and said it was not fair to Georgie, that he ought to
stay more with her, and less with Miss Overton.

“Had you chosen Dotty first,” she said, using the pet name which she had
caught from Maude, and adopted as her own. “Had you chosen Dotty, I do
not think I should have objected, for the girl is very dear to me; but
you took Georgie, and now I would have you deal honorably with her, and
not give her any cause for complaint, and, above all, I cannot have
Dotty harmed.”

She spoke more for Edna than for Georgie, and Roy saw it, and wondered
if it were true that Brownie cared for him, or could have cared, if
there had been no Georgie in the way. There was perfect bliss for a
moment in the thought that she might have been won, and then, good,
honest, true-hearted man that he was, he said to himself:

“I have no right to lead her into temptation; no right to run into it
myself; I am bound to Georgie. I will keep my vow, and keep it well, and
Brownie shall not be the sufferer.”

After that there were no more interviews alone, no more hours by the
piano, or reading aloud to her from the books they both liked best.
Georgie had him all to herself, and if ever man tried to get up
enthusiasm for another, Roy tried to do so for Georgie, and tried to
make himself believe that he loved her and could be happy with her. It
was easier to believe this in her present softened mood, and by being
constantly with her, and shutting from his heart that other, fairer
picture of a brown-eyed, sweet-faced maiden, he succeeded pretty well,
and was tolerably happy and content until Edna went for the week to
Rocky Point.

Then he awoke to the fact of all she was to him, and how dreary Leighton
would be without her. It had been a satisfaction when returning from
Oakwood to know that _she_ was at his home waiting for him. Very
delightful, too, it had been to have her opposite him at his table,
pouring his coffee, and making his tea for him, as she had done all
winter, his mother being now far too blind to see to do it; she had such
pretty little dimpled hands, and she managed so gracefully, and fixed
his coffee so exactly to his taste, that it was not strange he missed
her quite as much as his mother did, and hailed with joy the day which
brought her back to him.

He met her at the station himself. He certainly could do so much, he
thought, especially as Georgie was at home with a nervous headache, and
he had been sitting by her an hour, bathing her head, and reading to her
until she fell asleep. He certainly had earned the right to go for
Brownie, and hold her hand a moment in his own, after he had lifted her
to the ground.

He did not tell her how glad he was to get her back; but she saw it in
his face, and felt it in his manner, as he drove her slowly home.

It _did_ seem like coming home, when Mrs. Churchill met her with kisses
and loving words, and told how lonely she had been, and how rejoiced she
was to see her again.

As they sat alone that evening, after Roy had gone to inquire after
Georgie’s head, she recurred again to the forlorn week she had passed,
and said, a little hesitatingly:

“I seem to be nothing without you, and what I want to say is this: I
notice, sometimes, when Georgie is with me, that you go out, as if you
thought I would rather be alone with her. I like her, of course, very
much; but when she comes, please let it make no difference; I want you
with me just the same. I am accustomed to you. I feel, somehow,
_rested_, when you are with me.”

Edna did not reply, but she felt a great throb of something like
homesickness rising in her heart as she thought of going away forever
from the gentle lady, who, she was sure, did love, and would miss her so
much.

Roy returned from Oakwood earlier than usual, reporting Georgie better,
and telling of a burglary which had been committed the previous night,
at a house up the mountain-road. Nothing of value was taken, he said;
but it showed that thieves were around, and he charged Russell to be
very careful in securing the house.

“I would not like to suffer again, as we did in New York,” he said; and
then he told Edna how, years ago, his house in New York had been
entered, and a quantity of plate and jewelry carried off,
notwithstanding that Russell grappled with the thief in the lower hall,
and gave him a black eye, by which he was afterward identified and
brought to justice. “He must have been a very ingenious villain,” he
said, “as, after he was tried, and found guilty, and sentenced to the
penitentiary, he managed to break out of prison, and is still at large,
and for aught I know, is the very scamp who robbed the house last
night.”

Edna was not cowardly, and forgot all about Roy’s burglar until the next
day, when Georgie came over to Leighton, and the story was told again by
Mrs. Churchill, who had been a little timid the previous night, and
thought, once or twice, that she heard something around the house.

Georgie was interested, and excited, and frightened.

“We had a burglar in our house once,” she said; “and since then I cannot
even hear the word without its setting every nerve to quivering.”

“Then let’s talk of something pleasanter,—those trunks, for instance,
which I saw in the express office this morning, and which must have
contained the wedding finery, eh?” Roy said, playfully.

His allusion to the “wedding finery” was a fortunate one, and diverted
Georgie’s thoughts from burglars to the beautiful dresses which had that
morning come up from New York for herself and Maude, whose trousseau was
purchased by Mr. Burton himself, and was to be scarcely less elegant
than that of Georgie. Edna was to be one of the bridesmaids, and Mrs.
Churchill was having her dress made in the house, and taking as much
pride in it as if Edna had been her daughter.

And Edna tried hard to be happy, and sometimes made herself believe that
she was, though a sense of loneliness and pain would steal over her
whenever she saw Roy riding down the avenue, and knew where he was
going, and that soon it would be a sin for her to watch him thus.
Charlie’s grave was visited oftener now, and the girlish widow tried to
get up a sentimental kind of sorrow for the dead, and to think that her
heart was buried with him, knowing all the while that a hundred living
Charlies could not make up for that something she craved so terribly.

The bridal day was fixed for the 20th of June, and Edna felt that she
should be glad when it was over. She had no thought, or even wish, that
anything would occur to prevent the affair, which was talked of now from
morning till night in Summerville, and was even agitating the higher
circle in New York; for many of Georgie’s friends were coming out to see
her married, and rooms were engaged for them at the hotel and every
other available house.

And now but three days remained before the 20th. A few of the city
guests, Georgie’s more intimate friends, who were to be bridesmaids, had
already come, and were stopping at Oakwood; and on the afternoon of the
17th, they went with Roy and Georgie to a pleasant point on the river,
where they had a little pic-nic, and dined upon the grass, and made
merry generally, until a roll of thunder overhead, and the sudden
darkening of the sky warned them to hurry home if they would escape the
storm, which came up so fast, and so furiously, that the horses of the
carriage in which Georgie rode, frightened by the constant lightning and
rapid thunder crashes, became unmanageable, and dashed along the highway
at a rate which threatened destruction to the occupants of the carriage.

“We are lost! we shall all be killed!” Georgie shrieked, just as from a
thicket of trees a man darted out, and, seizing the foaming steeds by
the bridle, managed, by being himself dragged along with them, to check
their headlong speed, and finally quiet them.

“Thank you, sir. We owe our lives to you. Please give me your name and
address,” Roy said, but the man merely mumbled something inarticulate in
reply, and slouching his hat over his face so as to shield it from the
rain, walked rapidly away, just as the other carriage driven by Russell
came up.

Roy’s ladies were very much frightened and excited, especially Georgie,
whose face was white as ashes, when Roy turned to speak to her, and who
shook as if she had an ague chill.

“I am so very nervous,” she said, by way of explanation, when, after she
was safe at Oakwood, Maude commented upon her extreme pallor, and her
general terrified appearance.

Through the blinding rain, which fell in torrents, she had caught a
glimpse of the stranger’s face, as he sprang toward the horses, and that
glimpse had frozen her with horror for a moment, and made her very teeth
chatter with fear, and her hair prickle at its roots. Then, as she
remembered how impossible it was for the dead to rise and assume a
living form, she tried to reassure herself that she had not seen aright.
It was a resemblance, nothing more; a mere likeness which she in her
weak, nervous state had magnified into a certainty. _He_ was dead, the
curse of her life; she had nothing to fear; she was Roy’s wife, or would
be in a few days, and there was no lawful reason why she should not be
so. Thus she tried to reassure herself, until she became more quiet, and
dressed for the evening, and met Roy, when he came, with a kiss and
smile, and asked him in a rather indifferent manner if he knew who the
stranger was who had come so bravely to their aid.

Roy did not know, but thought it very possible he was some workman on
the farm near by, though his appearance was not quite that of a common
laborer.

“Didn’t he have queer eyes? Wasn’t one of them turned, or put out, or
something?” was Georgie’s next query, and Roy answered laughingly:

“Really, you were more observing than I was. Why I don’t know whether
the man had two eyes or four. I only know that we owe our lives to him,
whoever he may be.”

He did not tell her all that had transpired at Leighton with regard to
the stranger, or how, when he left home, Russell was busy nailing
windows which had no fastenings, and barricading doors, and doing
numerous things, which indicated that from some quarter he was
apprehending a night attack upon his master’s property. Russell, too,
had seen the stranger’s face more distinctly than Georgie had, and he
could have sworn, ay, did swear, that he had seen it before, and had his
fingers on that throat down in the basement of his master’s house, years
before, in New York.

“I know it is the same, and he’ll be here to-night, maybe, to try his
luck again,” he said, to Roy and Edna, who made light of his fears, and
told him he was always seeing burglars in the shade of every tree and
around every corner of the house.

Remembering Georgie’s nervousness, Roy kindly suggested that she should
not be told of Russell’s suspicion, and so he answered her lightly when
she questioned him of the stranger, but felt a little startled when her
description of the disfigured eye tallied so exactly with what Russell
had said. He did not stay late at Oakwood that night, but returned
earlier than usual to Leighton, which he found bolted, and barred, and
locked, as if it had been some fortified castle ready to be besieged;
but Russell’s burglar did not make his appearance, a little to the
disappointment of the good man, who narrated to Edna the particulars in
full of his encounter with the midnight robber, who managed to break
away, and escape from justice after all.

“What was his name?” Edna asked, more by way of saying something than
because she was specially interested in the subject.

“John Sand he gave, though we didn’t believe it was correct; we thought
he took an assumed name to spare his wife. They said he had one, a very
handsome young girl, and I think she was in the court-room when he was
tried.”

Just then Edna was called away by Mrs. Churchill, and Russell was left
alone to think over the one adventure of his life, his conflict with the
robber, of which he was never weary of talking.

What Georgie had endured the previous night no one guessed. Tortured
with doubts which nearly drove her wild, she paced her room for hours,
going over again and again in her own mind all the evidence she had ever
received of _his_ death, the _his_ referring to the original of the
spectre haunting her so cruelly now.

“It must be that he is dead,” she said again and again, and then as she
grew more quiet, she calmly asked herself what she would do if her fears
proved true, and her answer was, “If already married to Roy, I will
abide by his verdict: if not, if I know for sure before the twentieth,
I’ll kill myself.”

There was a suicidal expression in her eyes as she said this, and she
had the look of a woman capable of doing any thing if once driven to
bay. It was nearly morning before Georgie slept, if indeed that state
can be called sleep, in which so much of horror and fear is mingled as
there was in her troubled dreams.

She was very pale and haggard when she came down to breakfast, and
complained of her head, which she said was aching badly. She had
suffered a great deal from nervous headache since Annie’s death, and had
sometimes expressed a fear that she should one day be crazy. She almost
looked so now, with her unnaturally pallid face and glittering black
eyes, and Mrs. Burton, always alarmed when anything ailed Georgie, made
her lie down in a quiet, shaded little room in the rear of the house,
and then sat by her all the morning, until Roy came and asked to see
her. Then Georgie made a great effort to shake off the incubus which had
fastened upon her, and dressing herself with the utmost care, went down
to her lover and friends, and tried to be merry and gay, and felt a
great load lifted from her spirits when Roy said:

“I think I have ascertained who our deliverer was. It is a poor man
living near the spot where we were providentially saved from
destruction, and I have charged Russell to see him, and remunerate him
properly. He has a large family of children, I believe.”

“How did you hear who it was?” Georgie asked, and Roy replied: “I saw a
man this morning from that vicinity who told me.”

After that Georgie did not longer doubt, and long before Roy left her,
her headache passed away and the bright color came back to her cheeks,
and one could almost see the filling up of her shrivelled flesh, and the
fading of the dark circles beneath her eyes. Georgie was happy again,
and that night her sleep was undisturbed by troubled dreams, or horrid
dread of retributive justice overtaking her at the very moment when the
cup of joy was in her grasp and almost at her lips.




                              CHAPTER XLI.
                              THE BURGLAR.


It was the 19th; the very day before the bridal. All the city guests had
arrived, and there was a grand dinner at Oakwood, where the three long
tables were set upon the lawn beneath the maples, the bright silver, and
the gay flowers showing well through the surrounding shrubbery, and
seeming to curious passers-by, who stopped a moment to look on, more
like a fairy scene than a reality. And Georgie, in her elegant white
dress, was queen of the banquet, and quite overshadowed Maude in her
simple muslin, with a few flowers in her hair. As some beautiful rose,
which has drooped and pined beneath the fervid heat of a hot summer day,
revives again after a refreshing rain, and seems fairer than ever; so
Georgie, with her mind at ease, blossomed with new grace and beauty,
looking so well and appearing so well that none ever forgot her as she
was on that afternoon, the last she was to know in peace.

Anticipating the festivities of the next night, the guests did not tarry
late, but dispersed soon after dinner was over, each making some
pleasant remark to the brides-elect, and wishing them as bright a
to-morrow as to-day had been. Roy was not feeling well, and he, too,
went early, telling Georgie that he should not come again until he came
to claim her.

There was a moon that night, but occasionally a rift of fleecy clouds
obscured its brightness, and it was just as it had passed into one of
these misty ridges that Roy met in the avenue with two men, one carrying
a bundle, a little in advance of the other, who was walking slowly
toward Oakwood. Without a thought as to who they were, Roy bade them a
civil good-evening, as was his custom with every one, and then went on
his way, while the two men did the same. One was a man sent with some
work which had been done for Georgie in town, the other a stranger, who
eyed the house curiously as he approached it, and who hesitated a moment
when he saw his neighbor go round to a side door and ring the bell.
Standing in the shadow, he waited until the ring was answered, and he
heard the man say: “A bundle for Miss Burton, from Slosson’s, and the
bill.”

Taking them both, the servant bade the young man wait a moment while he
carried them to Miss Burton, who had gone to her room. The bill was
paid, and the messenger from Slosson’s departed, while the stranger
stepped to the door, and asked for “Miss Georgie Burton.”

“Gone to her room,” was the reply, as had been anticipated, while the
stranger added: “Please hand her this—other bill,” and he held out a
sealed envelope, addressed to Miss Georgie Burton, adding, when the
servant asked if an answer was required: “Not to-night; to-morrow will
do as well.”

The next moment the stranger had disappeared under the dense shadow of
the trees; and the servant was on her way to Georgie’s room.

Georgie was very tired, and had signified to Maude her intention of
retiring early. The arrival of the Slosson bill had retarded her
movements somewhat, and she had just locked her door and let down her
long flowing hair, when a second knock interrupted her, and she looked
out a little impatiently to see what was wanted.

“Another bill, which the man said could wait till to-morrow,” was the
girl’s laconic remark, as she handed her mistress the note, and then
walked away.

“Another bill? I did not know there was another,” Georgie thought, as
she relocked her door, and went back beneath the gas to open the
envelope.

But what was it which made her turn so white, and reel like a drunken
creature, while her heart gave such violent bounds that she felt as if
it were forcing itself into her throat. There could be but one
handwriting like that, and she stood for a moment perfectly rigid, with
her eyes glued to the name, “Miss Georgie Burton;” then with fingers
from which all the blood had receded, leaving no feeling in them, she
tore open her letter and read:


 “DEAR LU:

“If you wish to avoid exposure, meet me to-night at twelve o’clock in
the woodbine arbor at the foot of the garden. I have no desire to harm
you, or spoil the fun to-morrow, _but money I must have_, so bring
whatever you have about you, or if your purse chances to be empty, bring
jewelry. I saw you with some superb diamonds on one night at the opera
last winter. Don’t go into hysterics. You’ve nothing to fear from me if
you come down generous and do the fair thing. I reckon you are free from
me, as I’ve been gone more than seven years.

                                                     “Yours,      H. M.”


There was a gurgling sound in Georgie’s throat, as her first impulse was
to scream, while a prickly sensation ran like lightning all through her
right side, and she felt as if her mouth was twitching and turning
toward her right ear; but she did not stop to question the meaning of
these strange symptoms. She only thought of the fatal letter and its
signature, and how _she_ was ruined forever. The evil she had so much
dreaded, and from which she had thought to escape, had come upon her at
last. _He was not dead_; he still walked the earth; he lived and
breathed not very far away, and had summoned her to meet him, and she
must go. She had no thought of doing otherwise, and with the fearful
agony gnawing at her heart, she consulted her watch to see how long
before twelve. Nearly one hour and a half, and she clasped her hands
together so tightly that the nails broke the skin in more than one
place. But she did not feel it, or know that the blood was trickling
from her nose until she saw the stains upon her white dressing-gown and
on her long black hair. Mechanically she walked to the marble basin and
washed and bathed her face until the flow had ceased; then she took up
the letter again and read it a second time, while every fibre quivered
and throbbed, and her eyes felt as if protruding from their sockets. And
all this time she had uttered no sound; but when by chance she saw upon
her table Roy’s picture, which, since her engagement she had kept in her
room, the magnitude of the calamity which had overtaken her, burst upon
her at once, and with a low moan she fell prostrate upon her face,
whispering to herself, “Roy is lost,—lost,—and so am I.”

She knew that was so; knew there was no help, no escape for her now, and
again that prickly sensation ran through her side, and a keen pain like
a knife cut through her temples, where the veins were swelling and
growing purple with the pressure of blood. Fortunately for her,
unconsciousness came at last to her relief, unconsciousness which lasted
until half-past eleven, and everything and everybody in the house was
still. Then she roused herself, looked at her watch again, and prepared
for action. He had written:

“Bring jewels if you have no money:” and knowing his rapacious
disposition, she took her costly diamonds, necklace and all, her
emeralds and pearls, and placing them in a little box, hunted up her
purse, and laughed a kind of delirious laugh to find there were one
hundred dollars in it.

She had no hope of Roy; it was impossible now that she should be his
wife; there was a bar between them,—a living bar,—raised, as it were,
from the dead; and, though possibly, nay, probably, silence with regard
to the past could easily be bought, and Roy need never know her secret
even now, she was not bad enough at heart to let him take her to his
arms while that man waiting for her outside lived and roamed through the
world.

She had given Roy up when she lay upon her face, with the prickling
sensation in her side, and the terrible pain in her heart; had buried
forever that dream of happiness, and now the worst she would ever endure
was past. No phase of suffering could come to her like what she had
already felt, unless, indeed, Roy should hear the story of her shame,
and that he must never do. She could guard against that; she knew the
nature she had to deal with, and so she took her richest
jewels,—thousands of dollars in value,—and throwing around her the same
water-proof she had worn to Annie’s bedside, went noiselessly out into
the hall, and down the stairs, and on through another hall, the outer
door of which communicated with the garden, and was far removed from the
sleeping apartments of the family.

The night was a glorious one, and the moonlight lay like waves of silver
upon the green-sward, and the shrubs, and the beds of bright June
flowers, while the perfume of the roses filled the air with sweetness.
But Georgie saw nothing of all this, and the night might have been one
of thick darkness, so little she recked of it, or knew of the beauty
around her. The woodbine arbor was all she thought about, and she sped
swiftly down the broad, gravelled path, uttering a low scream as she saw
the figure of a man rising to meet her.

One quick, searching glance she gave him to make sure it was he, then
with a gasp she staggered forward, and would have fallen at his feet,
had he not caught her by the arm and held her firmly up.

“Sit down, Lu,” he said, not unkindly, and he drew a chair for her.
“Don’t take it so hard,” he continued, as he saw how white she was, and
how rapidly her heart was beating. “I do not mean to harm you; upon my
word, I do not; though I’ve no special reason for doing you a favor
except that you are a woman, and I once loved you too.”

Georgie shuddered then, and pushed her chair a little farther from him,
as if afraid he might touch her. But he had no such intention. However
much he might have loved her once, he was well over the feeling now. He
had summoned her to a purely business interview, and seating himself
upon a stool not very far from her, he continued:

“I see I am to do all the talking. You do not even ask me how I chance
to be _alive_ instead of dead.”

“It does not matter. I know you are alive, and that is sufficient,”
Georgie said, her words coming painfully, and her black eyes flashing
upon him a look of bitter scorn.

“It was a mean thing to do, I know,” he continued, without heeding her
indifference; “but it made you happier thinking I was dead,—made you
what you are, a grand lady,—the finest I have ever seen. Had you thought
yourself tied to me, you could hardly have held your head so high as
Miss Georgie Burton. Confess, now, that I have given you some years of
happiness.”

She would not answer him save by a moan of pain, and he went on:

“When I wrote that letter to you, Will, my cousin, was sick, and going
to die, and I was taking care of him among the mountains of
Pennsylvania. By some chance, we had changed names; he was Henry Morton,
I was Will Delong; and it occurred to me that here was a chance for my
life. I’d throw the hounds off my track, and breathe again a free man;
so I wrote that I was dying, and after Will was dead I caused to be
published in several papers the notice that Henry Morton, the man who
was arrested for burglary, and tried as _John Sand_, and broke from his
prison, had recently died. I saw the notice copied into other papers,
and felt that I was safe so long as I staid away from those who knew me,
and would recognize my blind eye. To remedy this defect, I took to
wearing glasses, which answered very well. I travelled West and South,
and crossed finally to England, then to Scotland, where I got me a
little home among the heather hills, and tried to be a decent man.”

“Why didn’t you stay there?” Georgie asked; and he replied:

“I wanted to know if you were living or dead.”

“Me!” she exclaimed, and for the first time since she had been there
alone with him, a fear of him crossed her mind.

“Did you think me dead?” she asked; and he replied:

“I dreamed so; dreamed it three times in succession, and so I came to
see, and found you surrounded with every luxury that money can procure.
Young still and beautiful, a belle and an heiress, your old name of
Louise Heyford changed for Georgie Burton, your old self all put out of
sight, and you engaged to marry Mr. Leighton. Do you know it was his
house I robbed in New York that night?”

“No, no; oh, heaven, no! I never dreamed of that; and I must have heard
the name too, but forgot it again, everything was so horrible. _Roy’s_
house, and I was to be his wife to-morrow!”

 She rocked to and fro in her anguish, while the man confronting her
began at last to pity her; to wish vaguely that he had staid among the
heather hills of Scotland, or at least had not shown himself to her. But
anon, another woman’s face arose before his mind, the woman for whom he
had risked this interview, and he ceased to care so much for wounding
Georgie, though his manner was conciliatory, and he spoke kindly and
respectfully as he went on:

“I wondered at the engagement if you _did_ know; and wondered too if he
had ever heard of me as connected with you.”

“Never, never! and Henry, oh Henry!” she stretched her hands toward him
now, and the expression of her white face was pitiful in the extreme;
“whatever you do or make me suffer, don’t subject me to that; don’t let
him know. I have lost him, but I cannot lose his esteem. Roy must not
despise me. I wronged you once; I know I wronged you in the tenderest
point where a woman can wrong a man, but I meant to be a good wife, and
would have been if you had forgiven and tried me. You would not do that;
you thrust me from you, and though I have seen much of prosperity, there
has been a skeleton in every joy. I have been fearfully punished every
way. Annie is dead, did you know that?”

She said the last humbly, beseechingly, and a flush of red crept into
her white face.

“I supposed she was. I saw the name of Annie Heyford on a stone in
Greenwood, close by Le Roy’s grave. And Mr. Leighton never knew of her
either, I suppose?”

“Not what she was to me. Nobody knows but Jack and you,” she answered
mournfully, while a sudden flame of passion leaped into the one sound
eye of the man beside her, as he said:

“Up to your old tricks again, I see; marrying with a lie on your soul,
just as you came to me.”

She did not resent the taunt at all. She was too thoroughly crushed for
that, and she answered gently, “Yes, I was going to do the same thing
again. I am everything that is bad, I confess; but, oh, how could I
tell, when all these years nobody has known, and I was so different, and
the old life lay far behind, and I did love Roy. Oh, if I’ve sinned
deeply, I am cruelly punished at the last. Think, Henry, to-morrow, ay,
to-day, for it is to-morrow now, I was to have been his wife; everything
is in readiness, the guests are here, and now it cannot be, and I,—oh,
what reason can I give to Roy for holding back at the very altar?”

“What reason? No reason. Why should you hold back? Marry him just the
same. I shall not interfere. I did not come for that. I came for money,
and took this time in order to get what I want. I thought I hated you,
but upon my soul, I don’t. I am sorry for you, to see you feel so bad,
but there’s no cause for it. Swallow your conscience a little lower
down. Act a bigger lie, and all will be right; for I tell you I am not
here to claim any right I may have had in you. I dreamed you were dead.
I’ll be honest and say I hoped it was true, for over the sea among the
heather hills is a little blue-eyed, brown-haired Scotch lassie whom I
call Janet, and who thinks she is my wife. There are also two children
in the home-nest; _mine_, too, as well as _hers_,” he added, and again
that red flush of shame crept into Georgie’s face, while the stranger
continued; “I tried to reform over there for her sake. She is pure and
good, and she loves me, and the fraud I practise upon her cuts me
sometimes to the quick, and when I dreamed you were dead so many times I
got to hoping you were, for then I’d do _her_ justice. So I came to see,
and tracked you out, and found you on the topmost pinnacle, and felt
angry when I saw your silks and satins and jewels and remembered Janet’s
two dresses, one for every day and one for Sunday, and thought of my
little boy Johnnie, who might be cured if I had the money. We are poor,
very poor, and Janet thinks I am making my fortune here in America, for
I told her it was for her sake and the bairns’ I came, and she is
waiting for me so anxiously, and I am going to her soon; within a week
at the farthest, but cannot go empty-handed. I did not enter that house
on the mountain-road, as you probably think I did. I know nothing of the
robbers. I quit such things after my escape from prison, and since I
have known Janet I have tried to be honest and decent. I have been
hanging about in this neighborhood for two weeks or more, trying to make
up my mind whether to seek an interview with you and risk detection or
not. I saved your life and Mr. Leighton’s too, but did not know when I
seized the horses who was in the carriage. If I had, I should have done
the same, though your death would make Janet an honest woman, for by
finding some flaw in our first marriage ceremony I should coax her to go
through with it again over the border in England.”

“Oh, if you had let me die then,” Georgie moaned faintly, and her
companion rejoined, “Nonsense; you are making too much of the matter.
There’s no reason in the world why you should not marry just the same. I
shall not trouble you, provided you do the fair thing by me. I want
money. You want silence. It is a fair bargain. Did you bring anything
with you?”

“Ye-es,” Georgie said slowly, clasping her hands to her head. “I brought
my diamonds and emeralds, worth thousands of dollars, but—don’t—don’t
think they are to cover my marriage. I am not so bad as that. I have
given Roy up, but I must keep his respect at any cost. Oh Henry, by the
love you bear this Janet and the little ones, I beseech of you, leave
the country at once, and never let my name be on your lips again. I’ve
brought the jewels, enough to make you rich. Look at this—and this—and
this!”

She opened the box, and held up one by one her diamond pin, and
ear-rings, and necklace; and the man’s eyes sparkled with eagerness as
he saw them flash in the moonlight, and thought how valuable they must
be. He had not expected so great a price, and he was generous enough to
say so, and gave her back her pearls and emerald pin.

“The diamonds will do,” he said, “and the hundred dollars will take me
home. Thank you, Lu; there is something good about you after all; but
how are you to get out of the scrape if you refuse _in toto_ to take the
man, and how will you account for the loss of your diamonds?”

“Leave that to me,” she said. “Only I warn you, that _you_ must not be
found near here, or anywhere, when the alarm is given.”

“Yes, I see; a _burglar_ got into your room,” and he nodded knowingly.
“I shall cross the river in a little skiff which is anchored just below
here. Once on the other side I fear no one. I know your room; its
windows look out on the river; watch for the boat, and when it is fairly
across, do what to you seems best! only screen me, as I will screen you,
now and forever.”

“You swear it,” Georgie asked, and he replied, “Yes, I swear by the love
I bear Janet, and the little ones, and the hope I have of seeing them
again, never to breathe a word to any living being, that I ever heard of
you save as the belle and heiress.”

He offered her his hand, and loath as she was, she took it, and the
compact between them was sealed.

“One o’clock, and I must be off,” he said. “Good-by, Lu. Take my advice;
marry Roy, and be as happy as you can.”

She did not reply, and he walked rapidly down the garden across the
road, and out into the field-path, which led to the river. Slowly, as if
all the life had gone from her body, Georgie dragged herself back to her
room, leaving the outer door unfastened and open, the better to answer
the end she had in view. Her own door too was left ajar, and then
drawing a chair by the window overlooking the river, she watched until a
boat shot out into the stream, and by the moonlight she recognized the
form of her late visitor as he bent to his oars and rowed the skiff
swiftly across the water.

An hour went by; it was nearly half-past two, and before very long the
early summer morning would be breaking in the east. What she did must be
done quickly, and with a calmness born of utter despair she made her
preparations. The box in which her diamonds were kept was laid empty in
her drawer, which stood open, its contents tossed up promiscuously, and
her empty purse lying upon the table. The emeralds and pearls were put
carefully away unharmed, as were some smaller articles of jewelry. Then
with trembling, ice-cold hands she made herself ready for bed, and laid
her throbbing head upon her pillow just as the clock struck three. She
had taken from a shelf, and looked at a bottle of laudanum, and thought
how easy it would be to end it all, but she dared not do it when she
thought seriously about it. She believed in a hereafter; in the Heaven
where Annie had gone, and she could not deliberately throw away all
chance of ever entering there.

“I may repent; the thief did at the last hour,” she said, as she drew
the bedclothes about her, and felt that she was ready for the first
scene in the strange drama about to be acted.




                             CHAPTER XLII.
                               THE ALARM.


Neither Mrs. Burton nor Maude had slept very soundly that night. Both
had been haunted with a conviction that they heard something about the
house, stealthy footsteps Mrs. Burton thought, and she shook her snoring
spouse vigorously, and tried to make him get up, receiving for reply,
“Pish, only one of your fidgets; go to sleep, do, and let me alone.”

And so poor, timid Mrs. Burton listened until her ears ached, and,
hearing nothing more, made up her mind that she had been mistaken, and
there really was no cause for alarm. Maude, too, had taken fright, and
knocked softly at Georgie’s door, but Georgie was in the woodbine arbor,
and did not hear her, and she went back to bed and fell asleep again,
and was just dreaming that her wedding had proved to be her funeral,
when a piercing shriek rang through the house, followed by another and
another, each louder, more appalling than the other, until every sleeper
was awake and huddling together in the halls, demanded what it was, and
where the screams came from.

Jack was the first to decide that the noise was in Georgie’s room, and
entering through the unlocked door, he saw his sister sitting up in bed;
her eyes rolling wildly, her long black hair falling over her
night-dress, and her whole face the very image of terror, as she
shrieked, “The burglar—the man—been here—in this room—look—where he went
and what he did. Oh! Jack, Jack, I am dying, I shall die!”

She continued her wild ravings until Jack succeeded in quieting her so
far that she was able to tell her story, amid a series of moans and
gasps and sobs. She had been suddenly awakened by some slight sound in
her room, and saw a man wearing a mask, standing, revolver in hand,
close at her bedside, and evidently watching her. Before she could
scream, so paralyzed was she with fear, his hand was over her mouth, and
his hot breath on her face, as he bent close to her and said, “Be
perfectly quiet, if you wish to save your life. Scream once, or make any
sound which shall attract attention, and you are a dead woman before I
leave the room. I have no wish to harm _you_, but your diamonds I must
have.” Frozen with terror she had not dared to move, but lay perfectly
still while the villain searched her dressing-bureau, and took, she did
not know what.

“Look, Maude,” she gasped; but Maude had already looked, and found the
diamonds gone, and the purse empty; but the emeralds and pearls were
there safe,—a state of things accounted for on the supposition that the
robber had been startled by some noise, and left his depredations
unfinished. He fled through the door, Georgie said; and having finished
her tale, she fainted entirely away, while the male members of the house
dispersed outside to hunt for the thief, and the ladies staid to
minister to the fainting woman.

There was no shamming now. Georgie had borne so much, and suffered so
much, that the faint was real; and she lay so long unconscious, and
looked so white and corpse-like, that Mrs. Burton went off into
hysterics, declaring her darling was dead. As soon as possible, a
physician came, and after carefully examining his patient, and listening
to the story of the robbery as related by each of the dozen women in the
house, appeared to be greatly puzzled, and said he hardly knew what to
think. It was scarcely possible that a sudden fright, however great it
might have been, could have thrown the whole nervous system so
completely out of balance as Miss Burton’s seemed to be. Had she been
perfectly well heretofore?

Then Mrs. Burton remembered how nervous and fitful she had been ever
since Annie died. “She took a violent cold at that time,” the lady said,
“and has never been or looked well since.”

“I thought there must be something behind. A person in perfect health
could hardly be struck down like this by mere fright. She does not seem
to have the free use of her limbs. Miss Burton”—and he turned to his
patient—“lift your right hand if you can, or speak to me and tell me who
I am.”

The great black eyes were wide open, and fixed upon his face with an
expression which showed that Georgie heard; but the right hand did not
move, and the white lips only gave forth a queer kind of sound, as they
tried in vain to repeat the doctor’s name.

“What is it, doctor? Oh, tell me what ails my darling?” Mrs. Burton
asked, terribly frightened at the look on Georgie’s face, and the
peculiar expression of her mouth.

“Auntie,” Maude said, in a low whisper, “come with me; I’ll tell you;”
and leading her frightened aunt into the hall, she told her as gently as
possible that Georgie was paralyzed.

It was true. The long-continued strain upon mind and nerve, which she
had endured in guarding her secret, with the skeleton of detection
always threatening her, added to the terrible shock of the previous
night, had been more than nature could endure without a loud protest;
and the prickly sensation she had felt creeping through every vein was
the precursor to the fearful thing which had come upon her, striking her
down as the lightning strikes the oak, and leaving just one-half of her
helpless, motionless, dead. There was no feeling in any part of her
right side; no power to move the soft, white hand, which lay just where
they put it; no power to speak audibly in the pale lips whose last act
had been to frame a tissue of falsehoods whereby she could steer safely
through the labyrinth of woe in which she was entangled. Poor Georgie!
There were hot tears shed for her that bright June morning, when the
sun, which should have shone upon her bridal day, came up over the
eastern hills, and looked in at the windows of the room where she lay so
helpless and so still, knowing perfectly well what was doing and saying
around; but having no power to tell them that she knew, save by the
feeble pressure of the fingers of her left hand, and the slow shutting
of her eyelids.

Wistfully Georgie’s eyes followed each movement of the people around
her, as if imploring aid, and resting longest upon Jack, who wept like a
little child over his stricken sister. All her faults and errors were
forgotten in this great calamity which had come so suddenly upon her;
and he remembered only that she was his sister, the beautiful girl whom
he had loved, and petted, and befriended, and chided, and scolded, and
blamed, ever since he had been old enough to read her character aright.
There were no scoldings, no chidings, no blaming now; nothing but love
and tenderness; and the hot tears rained in torrents over his face, as,
in obedience to a look in her eye, which he construed into a wish for
him to come nearer to her, he bent his face to hers, and felt the cold
lips trying to kiss his cheek, while the left hand crept feebly up to
his head, and stroked and parted his hair. No one of all those present
thought Jack one whit less manly for the great choking sobs which he
smothered on Georgie’s neck, or the tears which dropped so fast upon her
hair and brow.

With a trembling grasp she held his face close to her own and tried to
tell him something. But it was all in vain that he strained every nerve
of his ear to understand what she meant. There was nothing to be made
out of the mumbling noise, the only sound she could articulate. It would
not always be thus, the doctor said. She would recover her powers of
speech, partially, if not in whole, and possibly recover the use of her
limbs. He had seen far worse forms of paralysis from which there was
entire recovery. She was young, and naturally healthy, and had every
reason to hope for entire restoration to health.

“Be of good courage,” he said to her kindly, for he saw she understood
him, and hung eagerly upon his words; “be of good courage, and you will
yet be a happy bride, though perhaps not to-day.”

There was a sound then from the pallid lips, a low, moaning sound, and a
spasm of pain contracted every muscle of the white face, while in the
dark eyes there was a look of horror, as if the doctor’s words had not
been welcome ones. Maude, who was standing by her, and chafing her
lifeless hands, said to her next, “We have sent for Roy, Georgie. Do you
want to see him?”

At the mention of Roy’s name, the dumb lips spoke with an agonized
effort which brought the great sweat-drops upon cheek and brow.

“No, no, no; Ja-ack,” they said, and the sound was more like the moan of
some wounded animal than like a human cry, while the eyes seemed as if
trying to leap from their sockets, as they fastened themselves upon
Jack.

“What, sister? What is it?” he asked, and with another mighty effort the
lips moved slowly, and one by one made out the words, “Don’t—let—Roy—”

They could not articulate any more, but Jack thought he comprehended her
meaning, and said, “Not let Roy see you yet? Is that it, sister?”

She clutched his hand nervously in answer to the question and held it
tightly in her own. She did not want to see Roy then or ever. She could
not bear it, she thought; could not endure to look upon what she had
loved and lost just as it was within her reach. Guilt, remorse, and
shame were busy at work, and those who watched by her little dreamed of
the bitter anguish which was rending her soul and sending out that rain
of perspiration which wet her night-dress about the neck, and wet her
long, black hair, and the pillow on which she lay, and which was the
means eventually of doing her bodily good. The profuse perspiration
seemed in some way to grapple with, and partially subdue the disease, so
that after an hour or more she could speak more distinctly, and the
little finger of her right hand moved once as Maude was rubbing it.

“You are already better, Georgie. We will soon have you well,” Maude
said encouragingly, while one of the ladies in attendance carried the
good news that Georgie had spoken, to Mrs. Burton, who was in strong
hysterics on the sofa in her own room, and over whom poor, ignorant Mr.
Burton had emptied by turns the water-jug, the camphor-bottle, the
cologne and arnica, in his awkward attempts to help her.

Limp and wet, with her false curls as straight as an Indian’s hair, and
her under teeth on the floor where the hapless husband planted his boot
heel upon them, and crushed them out of shape, the poor woman received
the news, and in her joy went into another hysteric fit worse than any
which had preceded it. Frightened now out of his wits, and taking
advantage of the presence of some one with whom he could leave his
spouse, Mr. Burton retreated precipitately from the room, wondering why
the deuce the women wanted to raise such a row as his wife and Georgie
were doing.

“Hanged if I don’t take the first train for New York, and stay there,
too, when I get there,” he said, as he rushed out into the back yard,
where he met Roy, just dismounting from his horse, and looking very
anxious and disturbed, though _not_ as unhappy as one might expect of a
man who had just heard that his bridal, for that day at least, was
impossible, and his bride a paralytic.




                             CHAPTER XLIII.
                                  ROY.


He had not slept much the previous night. Indeed, but for the dream
which came to him in the early morning, he would have sworn he had not
slept at all since parting from Miss Overton, just as the clock struck
twelve. He had left Georgie at an early hour, and tried, as he kissed
her cheek, to believe himself happy in the possession of so much grace
and beauty, and he wondered, as he rode slowly home, at the strange
disquietude which possessed him, the feeling of something lost, or
losing very fast from his life; something which could have made him
happier far than he was now, for he was _not_ happy, and as he went
through his beautiful grounds up to his handsome house, he would have
given all his fair heritage to have been free again, and as he was one
year ago; ay, less than a year ago, on that September day when his
mother’s hired companion first greeted his sight as he came up the
avenue, and saw her standing upon the vine-wreathed piazza. As she had
been there then, so she was now, with this exception: his mother had
retired, and Edna sat alone, enjoying, or thinking she was enjoying, the
glorious summer night, and trying to make believe that she was happy;
that there was no hidden pain in her heart; no lingering regret for what
could never be; no _love_,—to put it in plain words,—for the man riding
toward her, and whose wedding-day was on the morrow. He saw her, and his
heart gave a bound such as it never gave at sight of Georgie, and then
his quick eye noted next that she was alone, and he was conscious of a
glad kind of feeling that he had left Oakwood so early. It was the very
last interview he would ever have with Miss Overton, and he meant to
improve it, never stopping to reflect that there was in his heart
disloyalty to Georgie, who might with reason have complained, could she
have seen how his face lighted up, and how eagerly, after disposing of
his horse, he bounded up the steps of the piazza, and drew a chair near
to Edna’s.

It was a long, long talk they had together, and though there was not,
perhaps, a word spoken which might not with safety have been repeated to
Georgie, there were certain tones of voice, and glances, which would not
have borne strict inspection; and Roy carried to his room that night a
heavier heart than men usually carry on the very eve of their marriage.
Had he made a mistake after all? The question kept insinuating itself
into his mind in spite of his efforts to drive it out. Had he, at the
last, been too precipitate, and pledged himself to one who could never
be to him what another might have been? And then he went over all the
particulars attending his engagement with Georgie, remembering how
sudden it was; how but for Mr. Burton it would probably not have been at
all, and how strangely Georgie had conducted at first, and how soon she
had recovered herself and taken things for granted. Then he looked on
the other side, and thought of Georgie’s beauty, and goodness, and
amiability, and her love for him, which he could not doubt, and in so
doing, drew a little comfort to himself, and felt that it was his own
fault if he were not happy with her. He could not think of Miss Overton;
that is, he dared not dwell upon what she was, and think how fully she
satisfied him in the very points where Georgie failed. It would be
folly, yes, a sin to do that now; and he resolutely put all such
tormenting reflections aside, and then, sorry for any doubts and
misgivings which had tortured him, he prayed earnestly that the thing
which looked so dark to him now, might be made clear as the day; that
wherever he had wronged Georgie, even in his thoughts, he might be
forgiven, and be to her all that a kind, true husband should be.

“I can make her happy, and I will,” he said to himself at last, as he
fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed, not of Georgie, but of
“Brownie,” who seemed to be with him, and in some trouble, too.

With a start he awoke, trying to make out where he was, and who was
calling him so anxiously, with so much terror in the tone. It was
Brownie’s voice, sure; that was no dream. Brownie was at his door
speaking to him, and what she said was this:

“Mr. Leighton, Mr. Leighton, wake up, please, and come as quickly as you
can. Something dreadful has happened.”

Swift as lightning his thoughts turned to his mother; something had
happened to her, and dear as she was to him, and much as he would do to
ward evil from her, he was half-conscious of a pleasurable sensation, a
feeling of hope that the something which had happened might give him a
little longer respite. He was soon dressed, and out in the hall with
Edna, whose face was very white, and whose voice trembled as she said to
him:

“I have bad news for you, and I am so sorry that I should be the one to
tell it, but your mother is sleeping quietly and I would not rouse her.
A servant has just come from Oakwood, and says that Miss Burton,—oh,
forgive me that I must tell you,—Miss Burton has had a stroke of
paralysis, and can neither move nor speak.”

He was not glad, and it was not a sense of freedom which made him clutch
Edna’s shoulder so firmly, as if he saw already a path which led toward
her. He was shocked, frightened, and filled with remorse as he
remembered all the past, and how he had wished to escape.

“Paralysis, and she seemed so well when I left her! When was it? How was
it?” he asked, and Edna told him of the burglar, and what she had heard
from the Oakwood servant.

“You will go at once,” she said as he made no movement, and that roused
him to action.

“Yes, certainly,” he answered, and then hurried down stairs, and out
into the yard, where his horse was already saddled and waiting for him.

Edna had given orders to that effect before she called him, and she
stood watching him as he galloped down the avenue and turned toward
Oakwood.

Georgie seemed better; had spoken once, and moved her fingers just a
little, they told Roy, in answer to his inquiries; but when he asked if
he could see her, he was put off with the excuse that a sight of him
might excite her too much at present, and then he asked for Mrs. Burton,
and was going to her room, when Mr. Burton exclaimed:

“Don’t for thunder’s sake go there. She’s in the awfulest hysterics, I
reckon, you ever run against, and the old boy generally is to pay.”

But Mrs. Burton _would_ see Roy, and so he went to her, and at sight of
him she went off into another cramp, and clutched him round the neck,
and cried and sobbed over him, and called him her poor, dear boy, and
spoke so touchingly of Georgie, that Roy, always sympathetic, felt the
tears rush to his own eyes as he tried to comfort her. The house was
full of guests, some of whom were huddled together in groups, talking
over the terrible calamity, while others were packing their trunks
preparatory to leaving on the first train for New York. There would be
no wedding that day, of course, so all the morning the baggage wagon
came and went, as guest after guest departed, both from Oakwood and the
hotel, until Summerville generally was emptied of its strangers, and an
air of gloom settled down upon it, as the citizens thought of the sad
change a few hours had wrought.

They had told Georgie of Roy’s presence in the house, and how he cried
in Mrs. Burton’s room. Then every muscle of Georgie’s face was
convulsed, and Jack, who was with her constantly, never forgot the look
of anguish which came into her eyes, or the quivering motion of her lips
as she tried in vain to speak again. What she thought no one could
guess, and she was powerless to tell, as she lay there all the day
listening so eagerly to all they said about the hunt for the burglar,
which was still going on.

“They will be pretty sure to find him; he cannot escape,” Jack said, and
then Georgie gave forth a cry which curdled his very blood, and made him
turn quickly towards her, trying to read what she wanted in her eyes.

But he could not, though he thought he understood that talking of the
burglar distressed her, and he forbade the mention of the subject in her
presence again. Even that did not satisfy her. There was the same
strange look in her eyes when they rested on his face, the same evident
desire to say something to him, and after a time she succeeded. They
were alone, he and she, for he would not leave her, and she would not
suffer it if he would. She had seemed to be sleeping, and all had left
the room but Jack, who sat rubbing her hand, and marvelling at the great
change in her face within so short a time.

“Ja—ack,” she said, and after a pause added, “Don’t—”

Then she waited again, and Jack asked: “Don’t what, sister! Don’t leave
you? Is that it?”

She shook her head and managed to say “Catch.”

Still Jack had no idea of what she meant, but he put the two words
together and asked: “Don’t catch what?”

“Ma—an,” she gasped with a tremendous effort, and there came a horrible
suspicion across Jack’s mind.

It could not be possible either, he thought, though if it were true it
would account for the terrible shock to Georgie.

“Did you think you knew the man?” he asked; and Georgie nodded her head,
while the tears gathered in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

Jack asked her no more questions then. He hoped and believed she was
mistaken; but when later in the day the men who had gone in pursuit came
back reporting their ill success, he managed adroitly to cool their
ardor a little, and threw what obstacles he could in the way of their
continuing the search. He was to write a notice for the papers, but he
conveniently forgot it, and put it off until the following day, and
Georgie’s face looked brighter when he told her what he was doing. She
had not seen Roy yet, though he had been in the house all the time, now
sitting with Mrs. Burton, who had taken to her bed, and was more
troublesome than Georgie, and now walking slowly up and down the piazza,
with his head bent forward and his hands clasped together behind his
back. Of what he was thinking, all guessed, but none knew how full of
remorse he was when he remembered the previous night when he had shrunk
so from his fate, and half wished that something might arise to save him
from it. Something had arisen, a terrible something, and to himself he
said, as he walked up and down, “I did not want this to happen; did not
want Georgie harmed, and if I could, how gladly I would save her.”

His heart was very full of pity and tenderness, and almost love, for the
poor girl, who never forgot him for a moment, and who felt comforted in
knowing that it was his step she heard so constantly passing beneath her
window. She had intervals when speech was easier, and in one of these,
which came toward the sun-setting, she beckoned to Jack, who was at her
side in an instant, trying to comprehend her meaning.

“Roy,” she said, then paused a moment, and added, “Free—free;—tell
him—now.”

Jack understood her, but did not go at once.

“Wait awhile before doing that,” he said. “You may get entirely well;
the doctor says so.”

“Ne-e-ver,” and Georgie shook her head and touched her helpless hand.
“Ne-e-ver,—de-ad,” touching again her hand and arm; then pointing to her
face and heart she continued, “Shall—die—soon;—tell—Roy—f-ree—n-ow.”

She was growing excited, and Jack left her with Maude, and went out to
Roy, who stopped in his walk and asked how Georgie was, and when he
might see her.

“Not yet,” Jack said. “She seems morbid on that subject; perhaps because
her face is not quite natural, and she thinks it might distress you to
see her beauty so marred. And, Roy, she sent me to tell you that you are
free. She insisted that I should come,” he added, as he met Roy’s look
of surprise. “She was growing excited, and to quiet her I came to tell
you that you are free from your engagement.”

For an instant Roy experienced a feeling of relief, a lifting of his
spirits, but he quickly put it aside, and said to Jack:

“Tell your sister that only her death or mine can sever the tie between
us. She was to have been my wife to-night, and as such I look upon her,
no matter how maimed and stricken she may be. Tell her I am waiting to
see her, to help you take care of her, that I think I have a right
superior to yours. Ask if I may come.”

This was his answer, which Jack carried to Georgie, who, with a frantic
effort, tried to raise her helpless hand to clasp within the other,
while her lips quivered and the tears rolled in torrents down her
cheeks.

“Don’t—de-serve—it,” she managed to articulate, and Jack, who knew her
so well, felt that she spoke truly, but pitied her just the same, and
tried to quiet and comfort her, and asked her if she would see Roy then.

She shook her head; but when Jack said, “Is it a comfort to you to know
that he is here?” she nodded twice; and so, though he could not see her,
Roy staid all night at Oakwood, and for hours walked slowly up and down
the piazza, always in the same attitude, with head bent forward and his
hands locked behind him. They had told him that Georgie was quieter when
she heard his step, and that when it ceased she seemed to listen for it;
and so, unmindful of his own fatigue, he kept up the same weary round,
until the moon, which should have lighted him to the altar, was past the
zenith, and down toward the west. Then Jack came out and told him
Georgie was asleep. So he paused in his walking, and sinking into a
chair began to feel how worn and tired he was.

Edna had come over late in the afternoon, and with Maude and Jack was
watching by Georgie’s bedside. She had not seen Roy since the morning
when she had broken the tidings to him; but when Jack came in and told
how exhausted he was, she poured a glass of wine from a decanter on the
sideboard, and placing it with some crackers on a little silver tray,
carried it out to him.

“You are tired, Mr. Leighton,” she said, “and I have brought you this;
try and take some of it.”

He had not heard her step, but at the sound of her voice he started, and
the weary look upon his face disappeared at once. He drank the wine and
took one of the crackers, and thanked her for her thoughtfulness, and
asked if she too were not very tired.

“Sit down and rest,” he said, offering her his chair, and bringing
another for himself. “Jack told me she was sleeping. You are not needed
there now. Stay with me awhile.”

So she sat down beside him, but neither talked much to the other, and
when they spoke it was of Georgie and the fearful thing which had come
upon her. Roy was very tired, and after sitting awhile in silence, Edna
knew by his breathing that he had fallen asleep. “If he only had a
pillow, or something at the back of that chair for his head, he would
rest so much better,” she thought, and going into the hall, she brought
out her own shawl and adjusted it so carefully, that he did not awake,
though he stirred a little and said something which sounded like “my
darling.” Of course he meant Georgie, and Edna left him there to dream
of the poor girl who was sleeping also, and who was better in the
morning when she woke.

The twisted look about the mouth was nearly gone, and her right eye was
much like the other in its expression. Still she could not use her hand
at all, or speak except with difficulty, and she persisted in refusing
to see Roy, who went home to breakfast with his mother, and then
returned to Oakwood, where for several days he spent most of his time,
until at last Georgie signified her willingness to see him. She was
looking quite bright and natural, and Maude had made her neat and tidy
in one of her prettiest white wrappers, while Edna, who was there also,
had combed and curled her long black hair and put a white rosebud in it,
and had said to her encouragingly, “You look very sweetly, Miss Burton,
and I am sure Mr. Leighton will think so too. Shall I hold the glass for
you to see yourself?”

Georgie shook her head; she was satisfied with the verdict of her young
nurse, and nodded her readiness for Roy. Both Maude and Edna left the
room as he came in, and so no one witnessed that first interview between
them, when, far more lover-like than he had ever been before toward her,
Roy kissed her pallid lips, and called her dear Georgie, and told her
she was better, and would soon be well.

Then she spoke slowly, painfully: “Ne-ver, Roy, ne-ver—well;
nev-er—your—wife; be-lieve—it—can-not—be, even—if I—should—live. I
shall—die. Am—afraid—to die; pray, Roy;—pray—for—me.”

And Roy did pray beside her bed, and with her hand in his, he asked in a
choking voice that God would spare her life. But Georgie stopped him
short, and gasped:

“Not that, Roy; pray—I may be—ready; pray Him to—forgive; and
there’s—more to—forgive—than—you know; pray for _me_,—for that.”

Roy’s voice was very low, and sad, and earnest now, as he asked
forgiveness for the stricken woman before him; that, whether living or
dying she might be God’s child, and find the peace she sought.

“Can you say ‘Our Father,’ with me?” he asked; and Georgie tried to
follow him, her lips making a queer sound, and repeating twice, “forgive
our trespasses,—my trespasses; my sin.”

“My sin,” was her burden; and Roy, who did not understand, prayed for
her generally until she seemed quiet, though the great tears kept
dropping from her eyelids and she tried to disengage her hand from his,
and shrank so evidently from his caresses, that he ceased at last, and
only sat by her as a stranger would have done.

After a while Jack, who had been resting, came up, and then Roy went
away to Leighton with Georgie’s farewell words ringing in his ears:
“Pray, Roy; pray for _me_.”

She did not again refuse to see him, and he visited her every day, and
sent her fruit and flowers, and tried sometimes to think she was
improving, but Jack knew better. There was no life in her right side
now, nor ever would be again. Her speech had come back to her, so that
she talked less painfully, but she was fast wasting away, consumed, the
doctor said, by a slow fever which he could not understand. Indeed, he
did not understand her case at all, and puzzled his brain over it, while
she grew weaker, more helpless, and more restless, too, begging to be
moved so often, that even Jack’s strong arms grew tired at last, but
never for that relaxed one whit in their efforts to do for her. Tender
and faithful as a mother to her sick and only child, he gave up his
whole time to her, feeling repaid for all he did when he saw how she
clung to him, and how much better she seemed when he was with her. No
one could fill his place, not even Roy, who spent a great deal of his
time at Oakwood, where everything was overshadowed in gloom, and where
the inmates just lived on from day to day, waiting for, and wondering
what to-morrow would bring.




                             CHAPTER XLIV.
                               LAST DAYS.


The wedding had been appointed for the 20th of June, and it was now the
20th of July; just one month from the day when so fearful a calamity had
overtaken poor Georgie. Every one, even to Mrs. Burton, had ceased to
hope for her now. They knew she could not live, and waited anxiously for
the final shock which should terminate her life. All the old
restlessness and desire to be moved continually was gone, and she would
lie for hours just where she was put, with her well hand clasped over
the feeble one, and her eyes closed, though they knew she was not
asleep; for occasionally the pale lips would move, and those nearest to
her caught whispered words of prayer, and knew that at the last the soul
so near to death was seeking for that peace without which to die is
terrible. Her speech was more natural, and could easily be understood,
but it tired her to talk; and when Roy came to see her, she would only
press his hand and nod her thanks for the flowers or fruit he always
brought her. She was greatly changed in more ways than one. Her glorious
beauty, of which she had been so proud, was gone; and her long black
hair was streaked with gray.

But Georgie cared for none of these things; her interest was elsewhere,
and the intensity of her anguish and remorse so great that often when
she lay with her eyes shut, Jack saw the great drops of sweat standing
upon her brow and about her mouth. To Jack as well as to Roy she had
said, “Pray for me,” and Jack did not repel her now with scorn, but,
unworthy as he felt himself to be, tried to pray for his poor sister,
promising to be himself a better man if peace were given to her. And
peace came at last, and brought a brighter, happier expression to the
worn face, and drove the look of terror from the eyes, and then Georgie
talked freely with her brother.

It was the night of the 20th, and he alone was watching with her. Again
there was a moon, and its silvery light came in through the open window
and shone on Georgie’s face, and made it seem to Jack like the face of
an angel, as she drew his head down to her and kissed him so lovingly,
saying to him, “Dear Jack, let me tell you while I can just how it was
that night a month ago. I told you all a _lie_; there was no one in my
room. I made it up to screen myself, for I must have some excuse for
Roy, some reason why I could not marry him. You told me once the dead
might come to life to witness against me. Jack, he did; Henry is not
dead; he was here in the garden; I saw him and talked with him, and gave
him my diamonds to keep him quiet. But Jack, oh, Jack, don’t think
_that_ of me,” she cried, as she saw the look of horror on his face and
guessed of what he was suspecting her.

“I never for an instant thought to marry Roy after I knew Henry was
living. I only did not want him to know about it. I don’t want him to
know now. Oh, Jack, can’t I go to Heaven unless I tell Roy everything?”

She was getting greatly excited, and Jack tried to quiet her, and
brought her a glass of wine, and then, when she was better, listened,
while in her slow way she told him what the reader already knows, of her
interview with Henry Morton; of all he said to her; of her utter despair
and agony, and her planning the story of the robbery to account for her
fearful excitement and the sudden illness she meant to feign so as to
put off her marriage.

“But God planned for me better than I could plan for myself,” she said;
“and sent the paralysis as a sure means of separating me from Roy. Henry
told me it was Roy’s house he robbed in New York, years ago. I never
knew that, or if I heard the name, I forgot it afterward. Did you know
it, Jack?”

“I knew the name was Leighton, but thought it another family,” Jack
said; and Georgie continued:

“Had I known it, I could not have done as I did, it seems to me, though
I was bad enough for anything. But I hope God has forgiven me. I feel so
differently, so sorry for the past; the fear of death is gone, only I
don’t know about telling Roy, and Aunt Burton, too. Must I, Jack? Do you
think I ought?”

Jack did _not_ think so. Telling them now could do no good, and would
only add to their wretchedness, he said, and much as he liked the truth,
he could not see that she was bound to a confession of what could in no
wise benefit any one, especially as there was no possibility of her
secret ever being known except to himself.

“For, Georgie,” he continued, “I have something to tell you, which I
have withheld, because I was not sure how much you knew, or how certain
you were who it was that took your diamonds. Henry Morton is
dead,—really, truly dead; for I saw him myself about a week ago, when I
went with Roy to New York for a day. He could not have sailed as early
as he told you he intended doing. Perhaps he was afraid of detection,
and kept quiet awhile in the city. At all events, he was booked in the
Scotia as Tom Anderson, and in going on board the night before she
sailed, either lost his footing, or made some misstep, and was drowned
before he could be reached. On examining his person, a handsome set of
diamonds was found secreted about him, and as they answered to the
description given of yours, a telegram was at once forwarded here, and
Roy and myself went immediately to New York, Roy swearing to the jewels,
while I mentally swore to the man, though outwardly I made no sign. Your
diamonds are here with Mrs. Burton, and Henry is in his grave. You have
nothing to dread from him. You are free to marry Roy, if ever—”

He did not finish the sentence, for Georgie put up her hand, and said
quickly: “Never, Jack; don’t, please, speak of that; never now, even if
I should live, which I shall not; I could not marry Roy without telling
him everything, and death is preferable to that. If I die, he need not
know who or what she was whom he thought to make his wife. Nobody need
know but you and Maude, for I want you to tell her. Don’t let there be a
secret between you. But do not tell her till I am gone; then do it as
kindly as you can, and excuse me all you can. I was young and foolish
when I knew Richard Le Roy, and he flattered and turned my head, and
promised to make me a lady, and I hated to be so poor, to stay all day
in that little school-room, with that set of tiresome children, and I
envied his sisters when I saw them going out to parties so elegantly
dressed, and knew they had whatever they liked best. There was nobody to
warn me; nobody who knew what he said to me, or how he lured me on to
ruin, and made me believe in him more than in Heaven, and so I fell, and
he died before he could make me a reparation; for, had he lived, I do
believe he would have saved me from disgrace. He said he loved me; I
believe he did; tell Maude so; tell her not to hate me, for Annie’s
sake. Annie was not to blame,—darling Annie. Shall I meet her, Jack?”

She was very much exhausted, and Jack bade her rest and not talk any
more then; but she was not through with all she had to say.

“Let me tell you while I can,” she whispered; “tell you what I want you
to do. He told me of a _Janet_ over in Scotland waiting for him, and a
little blind boy whose sight he hoped to have restored, now he had the
means. Find them, Jack, they live in ——, not far over the border. When
you and Maude are married, go there on your bridal trip. I have money of
my own,—ten thousand dollars, which Aunt Burton gave me. It is all in
bonds. I shall give it to you, and a part of it you must give to her, to
Janet and her little ones. That is something I can do, and it will make
me die easier, knowing somebody will be benefited by me. Promise, Jack,
to find her, or get the money to her in some way, but never let her know
she was _not_ his wife. Tell her his friends sent you.”

She could talk no longer then, for her speech was failing her, and her
utterance so thick that it was with difficulty Jack could understand
her. He made it out, however, and promising compliance with all she
asked, soothed and quieted her until she fell into a sleep, which lasted
several hours, and from which she awoke with a fresher, better look upon
her face and in her eyes. But this did not deceive her, nor delude her
with vain hopes. She knew that life was not for her, neither did she
desire it now. Hoping and believing, though tremblingly, that all would
be well with her hereafter; that the God against whom she had sinned so
deeply had, in His infinite mercy, pardoned even her; she looked forward
calmly, and even longingly, to the death which was to free her from all
the bitter pangs of remorse which, should she live, would be hers to
endure continually. The sight of Roy and her aunt was a constant pain
and reproach, for she knew how unworthy she was of the fond love
manifested for her by the one, and the extreme kindness and delicate
attentions of the other.

“If I could tell them,—but I cannot, and Jack says I need not,” she
thought often to herself, praying earnestly to be guided aright, and not
to be allowed to leave undone anything necessary to her own salvation.

Once when Roy was sitting by her, she said to him hesitatingly:

“Roy, you are a good man, one in whom I have confidence; tell me,
please, if a person has done something very wrong, ought he to confess
it to everybody or anybody, unless by so doing he could do some good, or
repair an injury?”

Roy did not think it necessary, he said, though he was not quite sure
that he fully understood the case. There were great sweat-drops on
Georgie’s face, and her lips twitched convulsively as she said:

“There was something in my early life which I meant to keep from you and
which I want to keep from you now. It would distress me greatly to tell
it, and pain and shock you to hear it. Do you think I must? that is,
will God love me more if I tell?”

Instantly there came back to Roy a remembrance of Georgie’s strange
conduct at the time of their engagement, and he felt certain that
whatever was now preying on her mind was then trembling on her lips.
What it was he did not care to know; it could not affect him now.
Georgie was passing away from him to another, and, as he believed, a
better world. He had never loved her as he ought to love one whom he
meant to make his wife; but during the days he watched beside her and
saw how changed she was, and how earnestly she was striving to find the
narrow way, even at the eleventh hour, he felt that he liked her as he
had never done before, and he did not care to hear anything which could
lower her in his opinion, and so he said to her, “Georgie, if the
something in your past life does not now affect any one, keep it to
yourself. I do not wish to know it. Neither, I am sure, would Mrs.
Burton, if the telling it would trouble you. Be satisfied with my
decision, and let us remember you as you seemed to us.”

He bent down and kissed her while her pale lips whispered, “Bless you,
Roy; bless you for the comfort you have given me. Think of me always as
kindly as you can, but as one who has erred and sinned, and hoped she
was forgiven, and who loved you, Roy, so much, for I do, I do, better
than you love me. I have known all along that I was not to you what you
are to me, and in time you will find another to take my place; find her
soon, perhaps, and if you do, don’t wait till I have been dead the
prescribed length of time, but marry her at once, and bring her to your
mother, if she is not already there.”

Georgie said the last slowly, and looking into Roy’s eyes, saw that he
understood her, and went on:

“She is a sweet girl, Roy; pure and womanly. Your mother loves her as a
daughter, and I give her my right in you. If you succeed, don’t forget,
please, what I say; if you succeed, remember that I told you _I knew all
about her_. Don’t forget.”

A violent fit of coughing came on, and in his anxiety and fear, Roy paid
little heed to what Georgie had said with regard to Miss Overton, who
soon came into the room, and signified her readiness to do whatever she
could for the suffering Georgie.




                              CHAPTER XLV.
                           DEATH AT OAKWOOD.


The August morning was a glorious one, and every shrub, and flower, and
plat of grass at Oakwood seemed fairly to laugh, as, glistening with the
raindrops which had fallen through the night, they lifted their heads to
the beautiful summer sunlight which came up the eastern hills, and
bathed the earth in a sea of mellow light. The air, purified by the
thunder-shower, was cool and sweet, and laden with the perfume of the
many flowers which dotted the handsome lawn, while the birds almost
burst their little throats with gladness as they sang amid the trees,
and flew about the house, from whose door knobs knots of crape were
streaming, and whose shutters were closed to shut out the glorious day
which only mocked the sorrow of those who wept that morning for their
loved and lost one. Georgie was dead. Just as the lightning-flash and
the thunder-roll passed away, and the young moon broke through the rift
of dark storm-clouds, she looked her last good-by to those around her,
and her spirit fled to Him who would deal justly with her, and of whom
she had no fears as she went down the river-bank and launched out into
the stream whose waters never return to lave the shores of time.

It was a very easy death she died; so easy, that Jack, who held her in
his arms, only knew the moment of her departure by the sudden pressure
of her hand on his, and the falling of her head upon his bosom. She had
said good-by to every one, and left for all a friendly word, and tried,
as far as possible, to repair any wrong she might have done. To Edna,
who was often with her, she had said once when they were alone:

“I have something to tell you. I knew you from the first, and but for
Maude and Jack, should have told Roy who you were. I disliked your being
there, and meant to do you harm. I purposely worried and annoyed you by
talking so much of Charlie’s wife, and I exaggerated matters when I told
of Mrs. Churchill’s feelings toward her daughter-in-law, and what Roy
said about her coming in disguise. You remember it, I think. I wanted to
make sure that you would neither remain at Leighton, nor divulge your
real name to them. Forgive me, Edna, won’t you? I have much need of your
forgiveness.”

And Edna had stooped and given her the kiss of pardon, feeling, as she
did so, that a load was lifted from her heart, and that she could now
make herself known to Charlie’s friends.

“Do it at once,” Georgie said. “Don’t put it off, but let Roy know who
you are.”

And Edna promised that she would; and then, with another kiss for the
repentant woman, she went back to Leighton, and when next she looked on
Georgie, she was cold and pale in death, but lay like one asleep upon
her pillow, with white lilies in her hand, and a look of perfect peace
upon her face. The pinched, disturbed look was gone, and in its stead
death gave back to her much of her beauty. The bright color had faded
from her cheeks; there were threads of snow in her black hair, and her
glorious eyes were closed forever; but otherwise she looked the same,
and poor Mrs. Burton wrung her hands distractedly, as she bent over her
beautiful darling, and called upon her to waken and speak to the mother
who loved her so much. They dressed her in her wedding robes, and Roy
kissed his pale, dead bride with a great sob of pain, and forgot for
once when Brownie’s step was near, and did not hear when she spoke to
him. It was a grand funeral,—the largest ever known in Summerville, for
the circumstances attending Georgie’s death had been so strange and sad
that hundreds had gathered from a distance, and came to show their
respect for the mourning family. They carried her to Greenwood, and laid
her by the side of Annie. This was Jack’s thought and wish.

“She was my sister,” he said; “nearer to me by blood than any one else.
I surely may have my wish.”

So Mrs. Burton, who had in her mind a fashionable lot, with a monument,
setting forth her daughter’s virtues, and costing from ten thousand to
twenty thousand dollars, gave way, thinking within herself that the
monument was still available, even for that rather obscure spot, and
wishing that neglected-looking grave, so near to poor, dear Georgie’s,
might be removed to another part of Greenwood.

“Whose grave is it, and who was Richard Le Roy?” she asked, after they
had returned to her house in New York, where she had proposed spending a
few days until Oakwood could be cleansed from the recent atmosphere of
death.

Jack, who knew more of Richard Le Roy than any one present, made no
reply, and so it devolved on Roy to ask if she did not remember an
English family which years ago lived on Fourteenth street, and had so
many handsome daughters.

Mrs. Burton did remember something about them, especially a piece of
_old lace_ which Mrs. Le Roy used to wear, and whose value was immense.

Richard was the only son, Roy explained, a fast young man, though very
genial and companionable. He died quite suddenly, and at the time of his
death was engaged to an elder sister of Miss Agatha Shawe; at least, so
it was said. The Le Roys had returned to England long ago, he said, and
that was all the information he could give concerning the occupant of
the lone grave, which Mrs. Burton felt was in her way. She was
satisfied, however, with what Roy told her, and never suspected the
cause of Jack’s sudden rising, and walking to the window, where he stood
for a time looking out into the summer night, and thinking strange
thoughts of the three graves in Greenwood, where slept, side by side,
Richard Le Roy, Georgie Burton, and the little Annie.




                             CHAPTER XLVI.
                   JACK’S MARRIAGE AND JACK’S STORY.


Two days before Georgie’s death she had asked to see her Uncle and Aunt
Burton alone for a few moments, and during that interview she talked
with them of Maude and Jack, telling them that to the latter she had
given all her possessions, and asking them to receive Maude as a
daughter in her place, and give her a part at least of what had been
intended for herself.

“And mother,” she said to Mrs. Burton, “it is my wish that they be
married at once. Do not let them wait because I am dead. It is better
for Jack to have a wife. Let them marry immediately. Say it was my dying
wish.”

Too much broken with grief to oppose anything which Georgie asked, Mrs.
Burton promised compliance with everything, and so it came about that
three weeks after Georgie’s death, there was a very quiet wedding at
Oakwood, and Maude was made Jack Heyford’s wife. Aside from the family,
only Mrs. Churchill and Roy were present, together with Edna and Uncle
Phil, who, at the earnest solicitation of Maude came down to the
wedding, looking very smart and trim in the new coat bought for the
occasion, and the white vest, and big white handkerchief tied about his
neck, giving him the appearance of a Methodist minister. Mrs. Burton was
a little shocked with his manners, and was glad there were no more
guests present to see him. But Mr. Burton enjoyed him thoroughly, and
took him all over his farm, and went with him to drive a fast horse
which he had just bought, and which came near breaking the necks of both
the old men. Roy, too, who had seen him at Rocky Point, was very polite
to him and made himself so agreeable, that Uncle Phil prolonged his stay
to a week, and when he left, he had Edna’s promise to visit him in
October, while Roy was to come for her when her visit was over.

Remembering the widowed Janet among the Scottish hills, and the promise
made to Georgie, Jack planned a short trip to Europe, and when on the
day following his bridal, the Scotia sailed out of the harbor of New
York, he stood upon the deck with Maude at his side, her face radiant
with happiness and joyful anticipations of the new world to which she
was going. She had as yet heard nothing of Janet, or Jack’s message to
her, but one bright, balmy day, when the sea beneath them was like
glass, and the sky overhead as blue as Maude’s laughing eyes, Jack led
her to a retired part of the steamer, and seating himself beside her,
told her Georgie’s story, and why he was going to Scotland.

Georgie had been very beautiful in her fresh girlhood, he said, and they
had been so poor, living on one floor of a tenement house down on Varick
street. She was older than Jack by a few years; was his half-sister,
whom he had loved devotedly ever since he could remember anything. His
father had died when he was a mere boy, and soon after his death,
Georgie, who then was known as Louise, her real name being Louise
Georgiana, had sought for a situation in a milliner’s establishment on
Canal street. But her face, and her natural love of coquetry was against
her, and after both sons of the proprietor had owned themselves in love
with her, she had been dismissed as one who did not know her place.
Through a kind friend who was interested in the beautiful girl, she went
next to a dry-goods establishment, where she met with HENRY MORTON, a
good-looking young man, whose virtues were rather of the negative kind,
and whose infatuation for Louise Heyford was unbounded. She meant to
marry rich, and while waiting upon customers, her thoughts were always
intent upon the future, when she too could wear her satins and diamonds,
and have her carriage waiting at the door, while she purchased what she
liked, irrespective of the cost. Henry was poor, and as such did not
gain favor very fast with the young girl, although while building her
Spanish castles she managed to hold him fast in her meshes, making of
him a perfect tool, to come and depart according to her pleasure.

Suddenly the firm failed, and again Georgie was without employment, with
a greater love for dress and admiration than ever before, inasmuch as
she had been so flattered and caressed. Her next situation was that of
nursery governess in the family of Mr. Le Roy, who lived on Fourteenth
street, and who had seven daughters, and one only son. Here, in this
family where a governess was but little more than an ordinary servant,
and where she was seldom or never admitted to a glimpse of the gay
world, save as she saw it in the rich dresses the young ladies wore, or
heard it in the snatches of talk in which they sometimes indulged in her
presence, she lived a dreary, monotonous life, always sitting, and
eating, and sleeping in the nursery, where she washed and dressed, and
taught and hated the three little Le Roys, who were the fruit of a
second marriage, and who did all they could to worry their young
teacher’s life away.

It was getting to be intolerable, and Georgie was beginning to think
seriously of giving up the situation, and either returning to the home
on Varick street, or accepting Henry Morton, when the only son of the
house, Richard Le Roy, came home from Europe, and everything was changed
as if by magic. They met first in the nursery, where Richard came for a
romp with his little half-sisters. He was very fond of children, and as
the little ones were nearly crazy over their tall, handsome brother,
waylaying him at every corner, and dragging him with them, it came about
naturally enough that he was often in the school-room, where a pair of
the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, soon began to brighten when he
came, and a young face to blush and half turn away when it met his
admiring gaze. Perhaps he meant no harm at first, for he was not vicious
or bad at heart. Georgie was a poor little lonesome thing, who was
shamefully neglected by his proud sisters, and who would be far more in
place in the drawing-room than in that pent-up hole with all those young
ones worrying her to death, and if he could do anything to ameliorate
her condition, it was his duty to do it.

Thus he reasoned, and acted in accordance with his reasoning, and spent
a great deal of time with the _children_, and sometimes took them to
drive, always insisting that the governess should accompany them. She
needed air and exercise as much as they did, he said, and to Miss Elinor
Shawe, to whom he was said to be engaged, he talked very freely of
Louise Heyford, and his charitable labors in her behalf. And because of
his frank, honest manner, no one suspected evil, or dreamed of the
fearful results of his deeds of charity. Henry Morton’s face wore a
sober, disappointed look those days when Louise snubbed him in the
street,—and was always engaged, or had a headache when he tried to see
her; while Louise herself expanded each day into new freshness and
beauty, and her eyes shone like stars, and seemed fairly to dance in the
exuberance of her happiness. Richard promised her marriage,—honorable,
though _private_ marriage, because of his family,—and their future life
was to be spent in Europe, where none would know that he had not chosen
his bride from his own social rank. All Louise’s castles were about to
come real, and in her own mind she had settled her bridal trousseau, and
her style of dealing with her husband’s family, when suddenly, as a
thief in the night, the blow came, and Richard Le Roy was stricken down
with a prevailing epidemic,—cholera, some called it. In twenty-four
hours from the time when his kiss was warm on Georgie’s lips, he lay a
corpse in the room where he had died, with only Georgie and his father
with him. His step-mother and sisters had in the first alarm fled to
their chambers, and locked themselves in from the dreadful pestilence,
though not until Sophie, the eldest sister, had begged of the despised
governess to go to her brother and help him if she could.

“Cholera does not often attack healthy girls like you, but it would kill
me sure,” she said, wringing her hands in great distress, while Georgie
stood motionless, with her face and lips as white as ashes.

It was _fear_, Sophie thought, and she tried to reassure the young girl
who needed no reassurance, and who went swiftly to the room where her
lover lay. He knew she was with him, and clasped her hands in his, and
tried to tell his father something,—but the words were never spoken, and
before the sun went down he was dead; and Georgie lay upon her face in
her own solitary room trying to fight back the horrid fear which
amounted almost to a certainty, and which within three days drove her to
the store where Henry Morton was a clerk. He saw her as she meant he
should, and the sweetness of her smile, and the great change in her
manner toward him, drew him again to her side, and revived all his love
for her. There was a chance meeting next day in the street, a long walk
in the evening, followed by another and another, and ere Richard Le Roy
had been in his grave a month, Henry Morton and Louise Heyford were man
and wife. Contrary to the usual course of things, she had been the one
to urge an immediate union. There was no necessity for delay; they could
earn their living better together, and she did so want a home of her
own, if only one room. He should see what a nice housekeeper she could
be, she said, when he proposed waiting a few months until he had more
laid up.

So they were married, and they rented two rooms, and fitted them up as
prettily and cosily as his limited means would allow, and there he
brought his handsome bride in November, and there, early in the
following May the little Annie was born. She was a full-grown, healthy
child, with no resemblance to the father, who, troubled and mystified,
looked at her curiously, and then at his young wife, and then went away
alone, and thought it all out, while as he thought there came over him a
change which awoke all the evil passions of his nature, and transformed
him into a demon of rage and jealousy. There was a stormy interview
between him and his wife, a full confession from her, and then he cast
her from him and drove her into the street, where, with her baby in her
arms, she wandered half the night until it was no longer safe for a
respectable woman to be abroad.

Faint, and tired, and sick, she stepped from the car, and turned toward
the home in Varick street.

“I’ll try it,” she said. “I’ll tell them the whole truth, and if they
too turn me off, I’ll go to-morrow to Greenwood and die on Richard’s
grave.”

As yet, neither her step-mother nor Jack knew of her disgrace, for the
former had been sick, and Jack had not been to see her since Annie’s
birth two weeks before. Jack slept soundly that night, and dreamed that
some one called his name. Waking at last, he listened, and heard
Georgie’s voice, calling him to come, and telling him she was dying.
That was no dream, and in a moment he was dressed and at the door, where
he met his sister with her baby in her arms, and her face so white and
ghastly that he uttered a cry of alarm, which brought his mother to his
side.

“Louise, it _is_ Louise,” he said, taking her by the shoulder, and
pulling her into the room. “It is Louise, mother; but what brings her
here at this time of the night, and what, what is this she holds so
tight?”

An infant’s wail told him what it was, and ere he could step forward,
Georgie held the baby to him and cried:

“Take her, Jack; take her before I die.”

And so it was Jack who first received the little unwelcome child. Jack’s
arms, which held her close, and Jack’s voice, which tried to hush her
plaintive moans. As she entered the room Georgie had sunk down upon the
floor, and when her step-mother tried to assist her she pushed her off,
exclaiming: “No, no, not yet; let me lie here in the dust until I tell
you all and you know how vile I am.”

Then, amid tears and sobs she told them the truth; how she had sinned,
and deceived her husband, who had driven her from him with the fury of a
madman.

“I have been in the street, out in the dark ever since,” she said, “and
I thought once to go down to the river and end my miserable life, but
the touch of baby’s hands kept me from it, and at last I come to you. Oh
Jack, don’t turn from me now,” she sobbed, as she saw the look of horror
on his face. “I know what I am, but don’t you turn against me. You are
all I have in the world. Forgive me, Jack. Take me in. Try me, for the
baby’s sake. You may learn to love her sometime, and to pity me.”

She was at the boy’s feet now, and her hands held him fast, as she
begged thus for his pardon. And Jack forgave her then and there, and
laying the baby upon his mother’s lap, he lifted Georgie up and strove
to comfort her, and said so long as he could work she should have a
home. He was earning good wages now; he supported his mother, and with a
little more self-denial on his part, a little overwork out of business
hours, he could support her. He did not kiss her; he could not do it
then; but he kept his hand upon her neck while he talked to her, and
Georgie did not feel one-half so desolate when she felt the touch of
that boyish hand. Jack had saved her; Jack would stand by her; Jack
would shield her as far as possible. And he did; and, with his mother’s
help, managed so well, that none of their few acquaintances guessed the
real cause of the separation between Georgie and her husband, or why the
former kept so carefully out of sight with her baby when any of them
called. It was mortification, and a natural shrinking from meeting old
friends, they thought, and so excused it in her, and gradually forgot to
speak of her and her affairs at all.

At first there was in Henry Morton’s face and manner a kind of sullen,
brutish ferocity, which made him so unpopular that he was finally
dismissed by his employer, and cast upon the world, a desperate man,
with nothing to do, nothing to live for, his home desolated, his wife
lost, and himself dishonored. Falling in with a set of the New York
roughs who live mostly by theft and fraud, he went rapidly from bad to
worse, becoming such an expert in robbery that he was always put to do
the work inside, while his comrades watched without. Thus it happened
that he was found in Roy Leighton’s house, and afterward identified by
Russell, who knew him by a defect in his right eye, which had been put
out when he was a boy. Although he gave an assumed name, it came out at
the trial who he was, and that he had a wife, whom he had abandoned.
Then came the verdict of the jury, the sentence to the penitentiary,
followed swiftly by escape, and the forgetfulness by the public, as is
usual in New York; where robberies are so common, and escape from
justice not unfrequent.

A year went by, and Georgie received a letter from her husband, telling
her he was dying of an incurable disease, among the Alleghany Mountains.
Then came a paper containing a notice of his death, and then Jack went
himself to the little inland town to make sure that the wretched man was
dead. There could be no mistake about it, he thought, and Georgie
breathed freer, and urged her brother’s removal to the West, where they
were unknown to every one, and where she could begin life anew as
GEORGIE HEYFORD, instead of Louise Morton.

And so westward they went, settling first upon a farm which Jack worked
upon shares, taxing his strength too much, until his health began to
fail, and the farm had to be abandoned. The next move was to Chicago,
where Jack procured work as half porter, half errand boy, in the store,
and rising gradually to a higher place of trust as clerk, and gaining
the good opinion of all who came in contact with him. Georgie and his
mother supported themselves by plain-sewing and fancy needle-work, while
the little Annie was known as the orphan child of a friend of Mrs.
Heyford, and Georgie passed for a young girl. Very few people knew her,
as she seldom went out except to get or carry work, and her life bade
fair to go on in the same quiet, monotonous way, when there came a
letter, which changed at once her whole destiny.

It was from Mrs. Freeman Burton, whose only sister had been the first
Mrs. Heyford, and Georgie’s mother. As girls the two sisters had been
strongly attached to each other. Early orphaned, they had clung
together, and by needle-work and teaching supported themselves
respectably, until a rich old man, who might have been Mrs. Burton’s
grandfather, had fallen in love with and married her, thus raising her
to a position of wealth and importance, and furnishing a home of luxury
both for her and her sister Annie. The latter, however, had given her
affections to young Heyford, who, though poor, had this in his favor,
that he was young and well connected, and that she loved him devotedly,
which was more than could be said of the gray-haired husband of Mary,
the elder sister, who had sold herself for gold, and who set herself
against the Heyford match. But love won the day, and with her sister’s
farewell words, “never come to me if you are starving,” ringing in her
ears, the young wife went willingly with her husband, and for his sake
bore cheerfully a life of comparative poverty, and tried to do her duty
by her husband and the little child born to them within the first year
of their marriage.

When she heard that her sister’s husband was dead, she wrote her a
letter expressing her sympathy, and offering to go to her in case she
could in any way comfort or console her. To this letter no answer came,
but a year after, Mrs. Heyford was surprised at receiving a call from
her sister, who came in quietly, and unattended by carriage or servant.
She had married a second time, and was now Mrs. Freeman Burton, of
Madison Square. Knowing that her sister was in New York, she had found
her out, not to renew acquaintance, but rather to _prevent_ it. She was
very frank and open, and said what she had to say in a manner which left
no doubt as to her meaning. “Their paths in life were very different,”
she said. “As the wife of Mr. Freeman Burton she was entitled to, and
should take, the very first place in society, and as her sister was
situated so differently, it would be unpleasant for them to meet each
other often, and they might as well make up their minds to it first as
last. She should come occasionally to see Mrs. Heyford, but should not
feel badly if her calls were not returned, and she greatly preferred
that Mrs. Freeman Burton should not be known as the sister of Mrs.
William Heyford, who lived on the upper floor of a tenement house far
down town, and made dresses for a living.” That was decisive. The
sisters never met again, and when at Christmas time Mrs. Freeman Burton
sent a check for one hundred dollars to Mrs. William Heyford, it was
promptly returned, and the intercourse ended entirely when Mrs. Heyford
died, as she did, not long after. The husband sent a paper containing a
marked notice of the death to Mrs. Freeman Burton, and a second time
that lady mounted the three flights of stairs, and knocked at No. ——.
But the rooms were shut up; the child Georgie was with her father’s
friends, and Mrs. Freeman Burton stole back to her fashionable house,
and cried all the morning over the memory of other days, when she and
her dead sister had been the world to each other.

Six months later, and she received another paper containing a marked
paragraph. Mr. Heyford had married again, and lived now on Varick
street, whither Mrs. Burton ventured to go, crying over the little
Louise, who had a look like the dead sister, and appearing far more
friendly toward the second Mrs. Heyford than she had toward the first.
Still, there was no wish expressed for further intercourse, and the
families for years knew nothing of each other except through the little
presents of books and clothes which were occasionally sent from Madison
Square to the little Louise, and which Mrs. Heyford kept.

When Georgie was thirteen, she heard that her aunt had gone abroad, and
in the exciting scenes of the ensuing years which followed, she almost
forgot the existence of such a relative until a letter came from her,
saying she had returned to New York and reopened her house, and was
coming in a few weeks to Chicago to find her _dear niece_.

“I have been a very proud, wicked woman,” she wrote, “but I hope I am
trying to do better, and wish to make some amends for my treatment of my
poor sister by being kind to her child.”

This was the secret of the whole. Mrs. Burton did believe herself a
better woman, and perhaps she was. An ardent admirer of Dr. Pusey, she
had in her the elements which made her afterwards a devoted Ritualist,
and she wanted to do something which should prove her reform to herself.
Upon inquiry in the neighborhood where she had left her sister’s family
she could learn nothing of them, so completely had they dropped out of
memory. Remembering at last the name of Mr. Heyford’s former employer,
she went to him and heard that her brother-in-law was dead, and the
family in Chicago; that was all the man could tell her. Of Georgie’s
marriage he knew nothing. Mr. Heyford died years ago, he said, and he
had taken the boy Jack into his employ until he went West, since which
time he had heard nothing from him.

In this dilemma, Mrs. Burton wrote to Georgie, directing to Jack’s care,
and then waited the result. For days the letter lay unclaimed, and then
appeared among the list of advertised in one of the daily papers. It
caught Jack’s eye, and he immediately went for it and carried it to
Georgie, who counted it the brightest day of her life when her aunt came
to their humble home, and offered to adopt her as her daughter and give
her every advantage which the heiress of Mrs. Freeman Burton ought to
have. There was no hesitancy on Georgie’s part. Dearly as she loved
little Annie, she loved ambition more, and said at once, “I will go.”

To Jack’s suggestion that she tell her aunt of her marriage, at least,
she turned a deaf ear. No one must know that. To go to New York as a
widow with a child would seriously mar her plans, and then in the
winning, fascinating way she knew so well how to use, she persuaded Jack
into taking an oath that he never would reveal her secret to any living
person unless she first gave him permission to do so. From her
step-mother a promise of silence was all she could obtain, but she knew
Mrs. Heyford well enough to feel sure that she was safe; and casting the
past behind her, she said good-by to Jack, her mother, and Annie, and
went with her aunt, who had no suspicion that the beautiful young
creature, who seemed so soft, and gentle, and innocent, had a hidden
history, from which she would have shrunk in dismay.

What Mrs. Burton hated she hated cordially, and what she loved she loved
as cordially, and she lavished upon her niece all the affection which
she had withheld from her sister and both her husbands.

At first she had her taught at home under her own eye, and then when she
felt that she had acquired a little of the polish and knowledge of the
world, which would be expected from Mrs. Freeman Burton’s daughter, she
sent her to a fashionable boarding-school, from which she emerged a
finished young lady, and became a belle at once. Her after career is so
well known to the reader that it is useless to repeat it here, though
Jack told Maude of the deep love there had always existed between his
sister and the little Annie, who worshipped her as some superior being;
“and I loved her, too,” he said, as he finished the sad story, to which
Maude had listened wonderingly, “loved her as few brothers have ever
loved their sisters. I knew she had many and glaring faults, and
sometimes in my anger I was almost desperate in my feelings toward her,
but a touch of her hand, a tone of her voice, or a beseeching glance of
her eye, had power to quiet me at once, and I would almost have walked
over burning coals for her sake, when in her softest mood. I knew, too,
that she loved me,—honestly, truly loved me,—and now that she is gone it
is a comfort to remember it, for there were times when I was very harsh
with her. Poor Georgie; in many things she was a splendid woman, and
though she greatly erred, I feel that at the last she was sorry for it
and repented most sincerely, and I believe she is in heaven now, with
Annie and my mother.”

There were tears in Jack’s eyes, and his voice shook so for a few
minutes that he could not go on with his story; but after a little he
continued, and told Maude about the burglar at Oakwood, and why he was
going to Scotland. It was on a mission for Georgie; and Maude entered
heart and soul into it, and would scarcely let him rest a day in
England, so anxious was she to find the Janet among the heather hills,
and the fatherless little bairns. They found them at last,—a
rosy-cheeked, brown-haired little woman, and two fair young children
with her, one clinging to her dress behind, and peeping shyly out as the
strangers came in, and the other turning his sightless eyes toward them.
Their errand was soon told; and when Jack saw how bitterly poor Janet
wept, he felt that Henry Morton had been a kind, loving husband to her,
even if in secret he had done her wrong. After arranging about the money
which Georgie had sent to the widow, who supposed it came from her
husband, Jack and Maude repeated their offers of assistance whenever it
was necessary; and then promising to see Janet again before returning to
America, he bade her good-by, and started on their tour through Europe.




                             CHAPTER XLVII.
                            ROY FINDS EDNA.


Edna had promised Georgie that not a long time should elapse before she
would make herself known to Roy and his mother. She had also promised
Uncle Phil an early visit to Rocky Point; and within a week or so after
Jack’s departure for Europe, she asked and obtained permission from Mrs.
Churchill to go to her old home. It was very lonely at Leighton without
her; and Roy found the time hanging heavily on his hands, and was trying
hard to make himself believe that his property at Rocky Point required
personal looking after, when he received through Miss Pepper a letter
from Edna, expressing her sympathy with him in his recent loss, and
saying that if he would come to Allen’s Hill, at such a time, she would
be there to meet him.

Roy had not heard from Edna before in a long, long time. Indeed, she had
written to him but once since his engagement with Georgie. Then she had
sent him a hundred dollars toward the payment of her debt, and had said
a few words about his intended marriage, hoping he might be happy with
his bride, but declining to tell him where she was living. And that was
all he knew of her; and he was not quite as enthusiastic on the subject
as he had once been. Miss Overton was his absorbing thought. Still he
felt glad that at last he was to see and know his mysterious
sister-in-law, and felt especially glad of any excuse which would take
him away from home and into the vicinity of Rocky Point; for he meant to
go there first. It would be only a short run from Albany, and detain him
but a day at the most, and Brownie was sure to be glad to see him. It is
true she had never said much to him of Edna, or evinced any great
interest in her; but she would be glad because he was glad; and he hoped
the two young girls would like each other; for of course Edna would now
live at Leighton, which was also to be Brownie’s home forever. He had
settled that last point satisfactorily with himself, and he meant to
settle it with Brownie before long. Georgie herself had hinted it to
him. Georgie had been willing, and had bidden him not to wait because
she was dead. And he would not; he would speak to her and tell her of
his love; and if she could love him in return, they would wait a
reasonable time, and then he would make her his wife, and install her
mistress of Leighton, where Edna should always have a place as the
sister of the house.

This was his plan; and he found his pulse quickening as he drew near to
Rocky Point, where he expected to find his Brownie. But the bird had
flown,—had gone, Uncle Phil said, to visit some of her kin. And when Roy
asked where her kin lived, the old man answered, “Oh, in forty places.
She is goin’ to Albany first, and then to Schenectady, and Utica, and
Canestoty, and Syracuse, and Auburn, for what I know. You’d better let
her run a spell whilst you hunt up t’other one; two gals at a lick is
too much.”

There was a knowing twinkle in Uncle Phil’s eyes; but it was lost on
Roy, who, in his disappointment, did not once think that Uncle Phil had
mentioned the different points along the railroad line through which it
was necessary to pass in order to reach Allen’s Hill. He only felt that
he must bear his suspense a little longer, and that it was hard to do
so.

The next day he took the train for Canandaigua, where he spent the
night, and the following morning drove himself out to Allen’s Hill, just
as he had done once before, when Edna as now was the object he sought.
There was no soap boiling in the caldron kettle this time, and no
Macbethian witch bending over it in wonderful costume, as Roy came round
the corner of the church, and tied his horse to the post. Aunt Jerry was
expecting him, and welcomed him cordially, and invited him in, and then
tortured him by talking for ten or fifteen minutes upon every topic but
the one uppermost in his mind. At last, when he could wait no longer, he
said to her, abruptly:

“Your niece wrote me that she would meet me here any day this week, and
I have lost no time in coming. She will not disappoint me now, I trust.
I am very anxious to find her.”

“Yes, I s’pose so. She’s here, though not in the house this minute. She
went to the woods an hour or so ago.”

“Can I find her there, do you think? Show me the way, please, and I’ll
try it,” Roy said with sudden animation, rising to his feet, and seeming
full of eagerness and impatience.

It could not have been anything in Aunt Jerry’s manner which
communicated itself to him, nor anything in the atmosphere of the house.
It was rather a presentiment of the coming happiness, a remembrance of
Uncle Phil’s demeanor and mysterious hints, which, put together, came
over Roy with a sudden suspicion of the truth, or rather a suspicion
that it might be just possible, nothing more. It was too delightful a
possibility to be true; and he must not harbor the hope for a moment, he
said to himself, as, waiting only for Aunt Jerry’s somewhat indefinite
directions, he started for the west woods, where Edna was to be found.

“There’s a brook down there, and a bank under a tree: maybe you’ll find
her there,” Aunt Jerry had said, and Roy kept on his way down the hill,
past the site of the old school-house where Edna had learned her
alphabet; through the bars, which he did not wait to let down, but over
which he vaulted at one bound; and on across the grassy patch until the
border of the woods was reached, and there he paused a moment to look
about and reconnoitre a little.

It was one of those balmy, autumnal days when earth and sky seem more
beautiful even than in early summer. A recent frost had just tinged the
leaves of the maple with scarlet, and here and there a leaf was falling
from the trees, and a ripe, brown nut was dropping through the hazy air
down to the ground, while the murmur of the brook was plainly heard as
it ran singing on its way, now through the bed of ferns whose broad
leaves dipped themselves in its cool waters, and now widening out into a
broader channel, with little fishes playing in it, and tall trees
reaching their arms across it, making a delicious shade, on that warm,
sunny morning. Roy followed the brook until he reached the point where
it began to widen, then a little farther on, and then he stopped again,
and felt every nerve quivering with an ecstasy of delight, so great and
overpowering, that for an instant he leaned for support against a tree,
while his lips framed the words, “I thank Thee, my Heavenly Father, for
this great joy of which I never dreamed.”

Twenty rods or so in advance, and sitting under a tall maple, with her
hat on the ground beside her, and her back to Roy, was a little girlish
figure, which Roy was certain he knew. The attitude, the poise of the
head, and more than all, the curls of golden brown, and the dress of
blue cambric, which he had always admired so much in Brownie, proclaimed
that it was Brownie herself, the woman whom he felt at this moment he
loved more than his life. Everything he had said to Georgie concerning
his disapproval of disguises, was forgotten in that moment of supreme
delight, when, with a few rapid strides he reached the figure on the
bank, and met the soft, laughing eyes he knew so well, and saw the
blushes deepen on the beautiful face upturned to his when Edna first
became aware of his close proximity to her.

“My darling,” was all he said, all he could say, as he took her in his
arms, and laid his mouth to the sweet lips which kissed him back without
a moment’s hesitation.

There was little need for more open declaration and acceptance of love
than was expressed in that first embrace. Roy had confessed himself in
the kisses he rained upon her lips, her forehead and her hands, while
she, in suffering it, had accepted him; and both felt that they were
pledged to each other, when at last Roy released her and drew her to a
seat beside him on the grass.

“Now, tell me,” he said, as he put his arm around her, and held her hand
in his, “tell me the whole story, why you deceived us so, and how you
did it so successfully?”

“You are not angry with me then, for being such an impostor? Oh, Mr.
Leighton, I have hated myself so much for the imposition,” she said; and
Roy replied:

“Angry? I should think not; but please drop that formal Mr. Leighton.
Let me be Roy to you.”

She always called him Roy to herself, when thinking of him, and the name
came readily enough.

“Well, Roy, then,” she began, “I wanted you and your mother to like me,
and I fancied I should succeed better as a stranger, than as Charlie’s
wife;” and then she told him of her life at Uncle Phil’s; of Maude’s
recognition of her; of the watch she sold, and which by some strange
chance had come round to Maude, who did not know until just before she
sailed whose watch it was she was carrying; of Uncle Phil’s wish that
she should take another name than her own; of Maude’s arranging for her
to go _incog._ to Leighton; and of the various devices she had resorted
to in order to keep up the delusion, and mystify him with regard to her
whereabouts.

She uttered no unkind word against poor Georgie. She merely said, “Had
you married Miss Burton, I should have gone away at once, and never have
let you know who I really was. _She_ knew me from the first, but kindly
kept my secret.”

“Ye-es,” Roy rejoined, between a sigh and a groan, for he remembered
many things Georgie had said in Edna’s presence, and which were far from
being kind in her if she knew, as it seemed she did, who Miss Overton
was.

But Georgie was dead; he had buried her from his sight, and he would put
from him even the memory of her faults, and remember only that at the
last she had sanctioned his love for the young girl beside him, whose
bright head he drew to his bosom, while he kissed the white brow, and
said, “Never to have found you, darling, would have been a calamity,
indeed, both to my mother and myself. She could not love an own daughter
better than she loves you, and I long so to see her joy when she learns
the truth, and that you are ours for ever.”

Then they talked of that adventure in the cars, and laughed over the
Miss Bettie Edna had so hurriedly dashed off, and spoke sadly and softly
of poor Charlie in his far-off grave; and then, bending his head so low
that his face touched hers, Roy said, “Georgie foretold this thing, and
bade me not to wait because she was dead. Shall it not be as she said,
my darling? Shall we be married at once?”

Then Edna’s love of mischief broke out, and withdrawing herself from
him, she answered saucily, “Married! who has said anything to me about
marriage? Surely not you, and here you ask for an early day. I am
astonished at you, Mr. Leighton.”

“Edna,” Roy said, bringing her again to his side, and holding her so
closely that she could not get away. “This is no time to trifle. You
know well what my kisses meant when I first saw you here, and found that
Edna was the same with the girl whom I named Brownie to myself, and whom
I now think I have loved almost since I first saw her standing at my
mother’s side, and answering to the name of Miss Overton. But lest you
misunderstand me, and deem yourself not wooed _au fait_, I formally ask
you to be my wife, feeling confident that after what has passed between
us you will not refuse me.”

She wanted to tease him dreadfully, but something in his manner forbade
it; she must deal openly with him, and so she replied frankly and
honestly, “I do love you, Roy, and am willing to be your wife, only I
had promised myself never to marry until the whole of my indebtedness to
you was paid. I have been extravagant since I have been at Leighton,
where I saw so much of dress. I have not paid you as fast as I might
have done. I still owe you——”

“Seventy-five dollars, I believe,” Roy said, interrupting her, and
adding, laughingly: “It was a foolish thing, your trying to be so
independent, but since you have been, and there is still something my
due, suppose we make it an even thing, and you give yourself in lieu of
the money——”

“Which will make me worth just seventy-five dollars to you. I hoped you
valued me higher than that,” Edna said, pretending to look aggrieved,
while Roy bent down and kissed her pouting lips, and said that to her
which told that money could not liquidate the price at which he held
her, and that to lose her now would be to lose the very brightness of
his life, and leave it all a blank.

While they sat there too much absorbed in each other to heed the lapse
of time, or hear first the bell, and then the tin horn, which Aunt Jerry
in her impatience had used alternately as a reminder of dinner, that
worthy spinster herself suddenly appeared before them, her brow clouded,
and her mouth puckered up in the peculiar fashion which Edna knew was
indicative of displeasure.

Aunt Jerry’s first act after Roy had left the house in quest of Edna,
was to unhitch the check-rein of the horse standing at the gate, and her
second to give it water and handfuls of the tall grass growing near.
Kindness to brutes was a part of her nature, and nothing which had life
was ever in danger of being ill-used where she was, unless it were a
child. For children she had not a great deal of love; but where animals
were concerned she was a second Bergh, and she cared for Roy’s horse and
patted its neck, and when she saw how high it threw its head at first,
and how it shrank from her, she said:

“Poor critter! I know by the way you act that your keeper abuses you. No
horse kindly used is ever as nervous as that. The wretch! I wish I had
him by the nape of the neck!”

When the horse was cared for, the dame, with thoughts intent on dinner,
pounced upon a group of fowls feeding at her back-door, and catching the
youngest, fattest one, had its neck off in a trice, and picked, and
dressed, and had it in the pot within an hour after. Aunt Jerry’s forte
in cookery was _pot-pie_, and she now did her best, and made such a
crust, as, to use a common culinary phrase, would almost “melt in one’s
mouth.” White and light, and flaky, it looked like bats of cotton wool,
and her spirits rose proportionably as she arranged her table and
prepared her vegetables.

Everything was done at last. The baked tomatoes were browned just right;
the corn pudding was white, and creamy, and sweet; the custard was
delicious, and the coffee sent a fragrant odor through the house; but
the guests did not come. She had rung the bell, and blown the horn, and
at last, as the clock struck one, she started herself for the
delinquents, exclaiming when she saw them, “Well, you are smart!” but
ere she got farther, Roy arose, and taking Edna’s hand in his, said to
her:

“I have found her, you see, and she has promised to live with me always.
She is to be my wife, if you do not object.”

“Umph! a pretty time of day to ask if I object, after it’s all cut and
dried, and dinner spoiling in the oven. Didn’t you hear the bell, nor
the horn I blew an hour ago?”

Both culprits pleaded guilty, and both made haste to follow Miss
Jerusha, who never spoke again until the house was reached, and contrary
to her prediction, she found that the pot-pie was not spoiled, though
she insisted that it would have been better half an hour before.

By the time dinner was over, Aunt Jerry was completely mollified, and
after her dishes were washed and put away, and her floor swept, and the
cat fed, and the horse watered again, she was ready to hear Roy on the
subject uppermost in his mind. He loved Edna; he wanted her for his
wife; and wanted to know if Miss Pepper had any objections to the match.

“It’s most too late to give them, if I have,” Aunt Jerry said. “But
that’s the way nowadays. Young folks have got the whip row of us, and
will keep it, I suppose. No, I have no objections. If she must marry,
and I suppose she must, I’d as soon she’d have you as anybody, and she
won’t go to you poverty-stricken either. Every dollar she paid me, I put
in Beals’s bank, in her name, and added another to it, so that she has
now as good as a thousand laid up. I shall give her another thousand,
too, and a feather bed, and I want it secured to her and her heirs
forever.”

“Oh, auntie, how kind you have been to me, when I thought, sometimes,
you did not care,” Edna said.

The money in the bank was new to her, and she felt the tears rush into
her eyes as she thought how she had misjudged her aunt. As for Roy, he
could scarcely repress a smile at the woman’s eagerness to have the two
thousand dollars settled on Edna beyond his reach, but he promised to
see that it was done, and then said it was also his intention to give
his bride, out and out, such a sum as would make her independent in case
of his dying insolvent, a catastrophe by the way, which he did not
anticipate. When he asked for an early day, and named Christmas as the
time when he hoped Edna would come to him, Aunt Jerry demurred.

“It was not decent,” she said, “and did not show proper respect for that
dead woman with the boy’s name.”

Roy reassured her on that point by telling her what Georgie’s wish had
been, and she gave way at last, but her face wore a very forbidding
look, and reminded Edna of the days when she used to cut carpet-rags up
in the back chamber. Roy could not tear himself from Edna at once, so he
remained all night, and made himself thoroughly at home in Aunt Jerry’s
house, and interested himself in whatever he saw interested her. First,
however, he wrote to his mother that he had found Edna, and that he
should stop at Allen’s Hill a few days, and then bring her home with
him. He wished to surprise her, and so did not tell her _who_ Edna was.
He only wrote, “You will like her. She is a pretty little creature, and
will be a great acquisition to our family circle. I need not bespeak a
welcome for her, I am sure, for you will receive her as a daughter, I
know, and love her with a mother’s love.”

It was rather late when he retired, and he would not have gone when he
did, if Aunt Jerry had not told him it was after her bedtime, and she
shouldn’t sit up any longer for anybody. Roy felt that he would gladly
have dispensed with her company, and enjoyed himself quite as well, but
he refrained from giving expression to his thoughts, and taking the lamp
she brought him, went to his room at the end of the hall.

Meantime, Edna had been longing for some expression of sympathy from her
aunt. Her heart was so full of happiness that she wanted to share it
with some one, to talk with some one, who ought to know something how
she felt; and after Roy had said good-night, she drew a little stool to
her aunt’s side, and laying her head in her lap, as she had never lain
it before, said to her:

“Auntie, have you no word of congratulation, for me? Are you not glad
because I am so happy, oh, so much happier than I ever thought I could
be, when—”

Here she stopped abruptly, feeling that she was treading on dangerous
ground, but her aunt took up the unfinished sentence and said, “When you
lived with _me_, and I made a little nigger of you; that’s what you
mean. Don’t spoil a story for relations’ sake. I was hard on you at
times, and mean as pussley, too. But, Edna,” and the voice began to
tremble, “I never meant to be bad. I didn’t understand children, or that
they could grow up to be a comfort, as I know now you would be, and
since you come back I’ve thought how nice it would be to have you live
with me, and now he’s come, and you’ll go with him, and the old woman
will be alone again, all alone.”

There was a pitiful sound in Aunt Jerry’s voice, and it brought the
tears to Edna’s eyes, but before she could speak, Aunt Jerry went on. “I
am glad for you, child; it’s the ordained way to marry, and you’ve got a
good man, I believe, and you’ll be happy with him. You think, of course,
old Aunt Jerusha don’t know what it is to love, but I do. I was nearer
once to being married than you are now; so near, that the day was set,
and my wedding dress was made, and my hot temper got the better of me,
and we quarrelled about a trivial thing, and I wouldn’t yield an inch,
and got so mad at last that I vowed I’d never marry him, and I never
have, and we have lived our lives alone, he in his way, I in mine.”

“Oh, auntie, I never suspected such a thing; and he is living yet, you
say, and maybe sometime—you’ll—”

“No we shan’t,” and Aunt Jerry spoke quickly. “I ain’t such a fool as
that. We have not met in thirty years, and the sight of me now would
make him sick at the stomach. I was young then, and not bad-looking
either; now I’m old and wrinkled, and hard and gray, and he is old, and
fat, and queer, and pussy, I have no doubt. No, child, don’t build
castles for me. Be happy yourself and I am satisfied.”

She stroked Edna’s hair softly for a moment, and then said abruptly but
kindly, “There, now, you’ve got just what you wanted; be off to bed.
Don’t you see it is going on to twelve o’clock.”

So Edna left her with a good-night kiss, and stole up to her room, there
to muse over her own great happiness, and to think of the story Aunt
Jerry had told her of her early love affair, which terminated so
disastrously. Who, and where was the man, she asked herself without ever
a thought of the truth, and while speculating upon it, and thinking how
queer it seemed that Aunt Jerry was ever young and had a lover like
herself, she fell asleep and dreamed that the lover was Mr. Freeman
Burton!




                            CHAPTER XLVIII.
                        MRS. CHURCHILL AND EDNA.


It was Saturday morning, and Mrs. Churchill was feeling very lonely and
desolate, and missing her late companion more than she did Roy.

“It is strange how she has grown into my love, and how much she is to
me,” she said softly to herself, as she feared that her dress was not
quite as it should be, and her hair somewhat awry.

She had depended altogether upon Miss Overton to care for her personal
appearance, and felt her absence more sensibly for it.

“A letter, ma’am,” her maid said, bringing it in and placing it in her
hand.

Mrs. Churchill was sure that Roy had written nothing which a third
person might not see, so she asked her maid to read it, and listened
with a strange feeling to what Roy said of Edna.

“Thanks: you may go now,” she said to her maid, who went out and left
her alone.

Roy would be there Monday night, and with him Charlie’s wife.

“Poor Charlie,” she whispered to herself, and tried to believe that the
tears which rolled down her cheeks were prompted by sorrow for him,
instead of sorrow for the fact that Edna was found and was coming there
to live. “I mean to be glad, and I am glad. I am going to like her, and
I do like her,” she said to herself; but she did not sleep much that
night, and nearly all the next day she sat out by Charlie’s grave,
trying by thinking of him and his love for Edna Browning, to awaken a
feeling of genuine affection in her own breast.

But she could not do it. The most she could effect was a determination
to be very kind to the girl, and to make it as pleasant for her as
possible. To this end she gave orders that the largest and best
sleeping-room in the house should be prepared for her on Monday, and as
far as her sight would admit, gave it her personal inspection.

“If it was only Miss Overton coming to-night, how happy I should be,”
she said, when after all was done, and the day nearly gone, she sat down
by the fire in the library to wait for the travellers.

It was very quiet and lonely there, and she fell asleep at last, and did
not hear the carriage when it went to the station nor when it returned.
But Roy soon found her, and putting both his arms around her, kissed her
forehead lovingly.

“Wake up, mother,” he said, and there was a ring of some great joy in
the tone of his voice. “Wake up, mother; I have brought Edna to you.
Here she is,—right here; let me put her hand in yours and see if you
have ever felt one like it.”

Roy was greatly excited, and something of his nervousness communicated
itself to his mother, who trembled like a leaf, and whose sight seemed
dimmer than ever as she turned her eyes toward the little figure, the
rustle of whose dress she heard, and whose hands took hers in their own
and held them fast, while a voice, which thrilled through every nerve,
said, “Mother, dear mother, Charlie’s mother and mine,—the only one I
ever knew! You liked me some, I know, as Miss Overton; love me, won’t
you, as Edna, and forgive the deception.”

Mrs. Churchill was pale as death, and for an instant could not speak;
but she held close to the soft hands, and bent her face down over the
young girl who had knelt before her, and whose head was in her lap.

“What is it? How is it? I do not understand at all. Roy, tell me what it
means. You bring me one you say is Edna, Charlie’s wife; and she calls
me mother with Miss Overton’s voice. Is it, can it be they are the same?
That the girl I already love as my daughter is really mine?”

“Yes, mother, really yours in more senses than one,” Roy said; and then
as briefly as possible he told Edna’s story, and why she had come to
them in disguise, and how he had loved her even when pledged to another,
and that she had promised to love him in return, and was to be his wife.

“Oh, I am so glad, so glad! Kiss me, Edna,” Mrs. Churchill said,
adopting the new name at once, and holding her daughter to her in an
embrace which assured Roy that all was well between his mother and his
future wife. “You would think me foolish if you knew how I did dread
your coming here,” Mrs. Churchill said to Edna when she was a little
composed and could talk about the matter calmly. “I was afraid it would
not be so pleasant for Miss Overton and myself with a third party, but I
am so glad now, so glad.

“It is so nice to have you back, and to know you will never go again,”
she continued; and then Edna told her of her promise to Aunt Jerry to
return to Allen’s Hill and remain there for a time at least before her
marriage.

“She has some claim on me; she is all alone, and I must do so much for
her,” Edna said, while Mrs. Churchill did feel a little chill when she
thought of the woman with the dreadful name who had written so
familiarly to her, and who was Edna’s aunt and had a claim on her.

But she loved the niece well enough to tolerate the aunt, and suggested
that the latter should come there if she wished for her niece’s society.
But Edna knew this would never do, and persisted in her plan of
returning to the Hill after a few days at Leighton and a flying visit to
Uncle Phil. Mrs. Burton, who called next day, received the intelligence
quite as well as could be expected. The fact that Georgie had known who
Edna was, and had indorsed her too, and even spoken to Roy about her,
and given her consent, went a long way toward reassuring her. What
Georgie sanctioned was right, and she kissed Edna kindly, and cried over
her a good deal, and said she should like her for Georgie’s sake, and
hoped she would try to _fill_ poor Georgie’s place in Roy’s heart, and
be a comfort to Mrs. Churchill.

In order to keep Edna with them as long as possible, Roy telegraphed for
Uncle Phil to come to Leighton, and the next day’s train brought the old
man with his quaint sayings and original style of dress. He knew how it
was going to end, and was not surprised, and he wished Edna much joy,
and congratulated Roy upon his good fortune in securing so great a
happiness.

“The neatest, prettiest girl in the world, with the trimmest ankles
except one,—that’s Maude; and Roy, Edna must be married from my house,
and in my church. I claim that as my right. Never should have built the
pesky thing that’s been such a plague to me if it had not been for Maude
and Edna, and that sermon about the synagogue. Not that I’m sorry,
though the bother has worn me some thin. We’ve got a nice man, too, now;
had him _two weeks_, and like him tip-top. Neither one nor the other;
Ritual nor anti-ritual, but common sense. Don’t mind Ruth Gardner more
than if she was a gnat. Yes, yes; a good fellow, who speaks to
everybody, slaps you on your back sometimes, and acts as if he liked the
old man; and he must marry Dotty. She’ll be the first bride in church,
and I’ll have it trimmed if it costs me my farm. Yes, Dot must go from
my house.”

Edna favored this, and as Roy did not object, it was arranged that after
a few weeks stay with Aunt Jerry, Edna should go to Rocky Point and be
married in Uncle Phil’s church. Christmas was the very latest time of
which Roy would hear. “Georgie said I was not to wait,” was the argument
which he used with all, and which finally prevailed; and so, after a
week at Leighton, Edna returned to Allen’s Hill, accompanied by Roy,
who, during the six weeks that she staid there, spent nearly half his
time there and on the road. “He was as tickled as a boy with a new top,”
Aunt Jerry said, but she liked him nevertheless, and paid him every
possible attention, and made Parker House rolls and Graham muffins
alternately, and used her best dishes every day, and hired a little girl
to wait upon the table when he was there, because he “was used to such
fol-de-rol,” and it pleased Edna too. Aunt Jerry seemed greatly changed;
and if uniform kindness and gentleness of manner could avail to blot out
all remembrance of a past which had not been pleasant, it was surely
blotted from Edna’s mind, and she felt only love and gratitude for the
peculiar woman who stood upon the door-step and cried when at last the
carriage which was to take Roy and Edna to the train, drove away from
her door and left her all alone.




                             CHAPTER XLIX.
                              THE WEDDING.


“Nobody now, Tabby, but you and I,” said Aunt Jerry, as she re-entered
her lonely house, and taking her cat in her arms, she cried like a child
over the dumb creature, which tried in so many ways to evince its
appreciation of this unusual caress.

She had said it was doubtful whether she went to the wedding or not; in
fact she didn’t much believe she should; it would be cold and
blustering, and she should get the neuralgia, and be in the way, and
nobody would miss an old dud like her. She should of course visit Edna
once any way, in her own house; but to the wedding she shouldn’t go.
This was her decision till the receipt of a certain letter which came to
her within a few days after Edna’s departure, and which changed her
intentions at once.


“Don’t be a fool, but come. I rather want to see if you look as bad as I
do.

                                                                  P. O.”


That was the letter, and it sent Aunt Jerry to the glass, where she
inspected herself for some little time, and decided that she was not so
very bad-looking, and she’d show him that she was not, too! So she wrote
to Edna that she had changed her mind and was coming to the wedding; and
she went over to Livonia, and from thence to Rochester, and having
inquired for the most fashionable dressmaker in the city, went to her at
once, and told her where she was going, and that she did not want to
disgrace her relations, and asked what she should get, and if she would
make it, and how much she would charge. The price staggered her a
little, and made her stop for a moment before committing herself, but
remembering a recent rise in stocks which had affected her, she
concluded to stand the expense, and when next she wrote to Edna she
announced that she had a new black silk, making at Mrs. Baker’s, and a
gray morning dress, velvet cloak, and black alpaca for travelling, and
that they were to be made in style, too, and she shouldn’t shame any
one. She did not add that she had indulged in a handsome set of lace and
furs, and even committed the extravagance of getting a waterfall! This
last article of fashion and luxury came near being the death of the poor
old lady, who could not make it stay on without a whole box of pins
which stuck into her head, and pulled her hair, and drove her nearly
wild as she persisted in wearing it when alone, so as to get used to the
horrid thing before going among the fashionables. The chest upstairs,
where the yellow satin and the faded wreath were lying, was visited more
than once, and the good dame in her abstraction forgot to shut the lid,
and when she went again to her Mecca, she found that Tabby had made the
chest and its contents into a nice bed and playhouse for the two fat,
pretty kittens which for three or four weeks had lived under the
woodshed floor, and only came out at intervals. The chest was locked
after this and not visited again before Aunt Jerry’s departure for Rocky
Point, with her new clothes, and trunk, and satchel. The dresses fitted
admirably, especially the silk, which was elegant in its way, and
trailed far behind the good dame, who felt more at home in her short
alpaca suit, which made her look full ten years younger than her wont,
and a few years younger than she really was. Some of the neighbors who
enjoyed her outfit, and the remarks she made concerning it, suggested a
round hat as a fitting accompaniment to her suit, but this Aunt Jerry
repelled with disdain, hoping she was not such a fool as to put her old
snuff-colored face under a round hat, not she. She had a nice velvet
bonnet, for which she paid the ’bominable price of fifteen dollars; she
should wear that, and her thread-lace veil; and she looked so nice and
stylish that Edna, who was waiting for her at the station, did not
recognize her at first, and looked twice at the fashionably dressed
woman, holding so fast to her check, which the hackman was trying to get
from her.

“Why, auntie,” she cried, when the turn of the velvet bonnet showed her
Miss Pepper’s face, “how pretty, and young you look. I did not know you
at first.”

“Fine feathers make fine birds,” was Aunt Jerry’s reply; but she did not
seem ill-pleased with her niece’s compliment as she followed on to the
little pony-carriage waiting for her, and which Edna had driven down
herself.

“Is this his,—Mr. Overton’s, I mean?” Aunt Jerry asked, in some
surprise; for Edna’s account of Bobtail and the square-backed buggy did
not quite tally with this stylish turnout.

Edna explained, blushingly, that the establishment was her own,—a gift
from Roy, who had driven it up to Rocky Point two weeks before, and left
it for her use while she was there.

“Love in the tub, just now; but wait till by and by,” Aunt Jerry said;
but Edna had no fears of the by and by; and her face was radiant with
happiness as she drove her aunt through the main street of Rocky Point,
in the direction of Uncle Phil’s.

“That is the place,” she said, as they turned the corner which brought
the old farm-house in view. “Uncle Phil talks of building a new house in
the spring,—a Gothic cottage,—only, he says if he does, there is nobody
to live in it but himself and Aunt Becky.”

“The nigger, you mean,” Aunt Jerry said, rather crisply; and, as one of
the ponies shied a little just then, Edna said no more of the Gothic
cottage, but gave her attention to her horses, until they drew up before
the unpretentious building, which Aunt Jerry eyed sharply, keeping her
veil closely drawn over her face, and feeling a decided trembling in her
knees, as she walked through the gate and up to the front door, where
she intended waiting till Edna could tie her ponies, and was ready to
usher her in.

But,—greatly to her surprise,—the door swung open, seemingly by
itself,—for she saw no living being; only a voice, which came from
behind the door, and sounded a little smothered, said to her: “Walk in,
Jerry, and make yourself at home.”

Then she walked in; and, as the owner of the voice emerged into view,
and offered her his hand, she said: “How do you do, Philip?” as
naturally as if it had been yesterday they parted, instead of thirty
years before.

Poor Uncle Phil had been quite as much exercised on the subject of his
wardrobe as Aunt Jerry had been with hers. He wanted to go decent to the
wedding, and not disgrace Dotty’s grand relations, he said. “He’d been
looking like a codger long enough, and he meant to fix up, and pay the
fiddler.” Nothing in Rocky Point, however, would answer his purpose; and
when Edna suggested Millville, he sneered at that, and even spoke
contemptuously of Albany and its tailors! Where did Roy get his clothes
made? Wan’t it in New York, and why couldn’t _he_ go there as well as
anywhere? Accordingly the old man went to New York, from which place he
returned so metamorphosed that the boys in the streets followed him as a
natural curiosity, and the men hollowed after him to know what had
happened, as he walked from the depot home, arrayed in his new suit of
clothes, which made him look so trim and youthful, with his turn-over
collar, and his necktie, and soft hat. Even his shoes and shirts were
city made; and he looked very nice, and very much ashamed as he hurried
home, glad to be out of sight of the curious, impertinent boys, and
wondering what they would say “to his t’other suit,—his very best, with
the little tail-coat, and the stove-pipe hat,” for he had indulged in
these extravagances, as they were safe in the trunk which the hackman
left at the door.

Edna was delighted to see him, and complimented him greatly on his
personal appearance, and never dreamed why all this change had been made
by her eccentric uncle, or guess how nervous and excited he was on the
day when Aunt Jerry was expected. She had asked him to accompany her to
the depot, but he had declined, and after she was gone had donned his
second-best suit, and put on one of his new neckties, and indulged in
cuffs and cuff-buttons, and a white pocket-handkerchief, which he
grasped in his hand as tightly as if it had been the spar which was to
keep him from drowning. When he heard the whistle of the train, he was
sitting in his arm-chair by the fire, but quick as if he had been shot,
he sprang to his feet, exclaiming: “The Lord help me!” while, in the
palms of his hands, and under his hair, were little drops of sweat,
wrung out by sheer nervousness and excitement. He saw the carriage when
it turned the corner, but the young girl with the jaunty hat and
feather, holding the reins so skilfully, and managing the horses so
well, was nothing to him then. He only saw the tall, erect woman at her
side, with the veil over her face, and the rich furs about her
shoulders.

“Straight yet as an Injun, and as gritty, too, I’ll bet you,” he said to
himself, as, stationing himself by the window, he watched Aunt Jerry’s
descent from the vehicle, and then as he saw her come up the walk, he
ran behind the door and opened it for her with the salutation we have
recorded elsewhere.

Edna was close behind, so close indeed, that she saw the look in Uncle
Phil’s face, and heard Aunt Jerry’s, “How do you do, Philip?” and in an
instant the truth flashed upon her, taking her breath away and rendering
her speechless for a moment. Then confronting them both, she exclaimed;
“Oh, Uncle Phil,—Aunt Jerry,—I never knew,—I never guessed,—I never
thought,—”

“Well, don’t think now, or if you do, keep your thoughts to yourself,”
was Aunt Jerry’s characteristic reply, as she walked into the
sitting-room with Uncle Phil following after her, standing first on one
foot, then upon the other, spitting a great deal, and flourishing his
handkerchief almost in her face in his zeal to make her welcome.

“Come upstairs,” Edna said; and glad to escape from the curious eyes of
the fidgety little man, whom she had mentally pronounced “fat and
pussy,—just as I knew he was,” Aunt Jerry accompanied her niece to her
room, while Uncle Phil said softly to himself: “Yes, yes; better go
before I bust the biler; good-lookin’ craft, though, you bet,” and he
nodded at the figure-head of the tall clock in the corner as if that
knew and appreciated his feelings.

Alone with her aunt, Edna could not refrain from saying, “Aunt Jerry, it
_was_ Uncle Phil; I saw it in his face; I know it all; I wish, I
believe—”

“You needn’t wish nor believe anything, for as true as you do, I’ll take
my duds home in double-quick time. I ain’t quite such an old fool as
that. Philip Overton and I have had our day, and lost it; let us alone;”
Aunt Jerry answered so fiercely that Edna came to a sudden halt with her
intentions of doing something for this odd, lonely couple, whose lives
had once been so near to flowing in the same channel, but had drifted so
far apart.

They were wholly unlike each other, Edna thought, as she watched them
closely during the evening, when with the first reserve worn off, they
talked together of old friends whom in their youth they had known, and
who were now many of them dead and gone. It was strange what a softening
effect the talking of these old times had upon Aunt Jerry, who hardly
seemed herself as she sat there with the fire-light falling on her
smooth hair, and giving a rosy tinge to her cheek. Her eyes were always
bright, and they shone now with much of their olden fire, and made Uncle
Phil “squirm,” as he expressed it, whenever they rested on him.

“If I only could bring them together. I mean to get Roy to help me,”
Edna thought; and when next day Roy came, the story was eagerly told to
him, and his assistance asked in the matter.

Roy was interested, of course, but declared himself no match-maker. He
had been more than thirty years making one for himself, he said, and he
advised Edna to let the old couple do as they liked, adding that he was
not at all sure it would be a good or happy thing for two people so
peculiar to come together. This was a damper to Edna’s zeal, and she
affected to pout for a little, but soon forgot it all in her delight at
the diamonds which Roy had brought to her. They had been his mother’s,
and had always attracted great attention from their size and brilliancy,
but she never cared to wear them again, and at her request they had been
reset for Edna, who tried their effect with Roy standing by and admiring
her sparkling face more than the flash of the rich jewels, and proving
his admiration by a kiss, notwithstanding that Aunt Jerry was looking
on, and pursing up her mouth with so queer a look that Roy kissed her
too, whereupon Uncle Phil, who had come in just in time to see the last
performance, exclaimed in an aside: “By George, the chap has more pluck
than I have,” while Aunt Jerry deliberately wiped and rubbed her cheek,
and said, “I should s’pose you’d as soon kiss a piece of sole leather.”

They were very gay and merry at Uncle Phil’s during the few days which
preceded the wedding; and nothing was wanting to complete their
happiness but the presence of Maude and Jack. From them, however, a
kindly message came on the very morning of the bridal; and Edna read it
with Roy’s arm around her waist, and Roy’s face looking over her
shoulder. Only a few friends from Rocky Point were invited to the lunch
given at the house after the ceremony; but all were welcome to go to the
church, which was filled to its utmost capacity. Ruth Gardner presided
at the organ, and did herself great credit with the music she made, as
the party went up the aisle,—Uncle Phil and Edna, Roy and Aunt Jerry,
whose rich black silk was stepped on two or three times by those who
followed in her train. Mrs. Churchill was not there. She was far from
well; and as there was to be a grand reception at Leighton that evening,
she preferred to receive her children at home, and staid to see that
everything was in readiness for them when they arrived. Uncle Phil was
at first a little stiff in his New York clothes, and wondered what the
chaps did who dressed up every day; but this soon wore off, and he was
the merriest and youngest of the party which took the train for Albany,
going thence down the river to Leighton, which they reached just as the
twilight shadows were beginning to fall, and the stars looked out upon
another Christmas Eve.

It was not a crowded party, but very pleasant and select; and Edna moved
among her guests like some little fairy, clad in her bridal robes of
sheeny satin and fleecy lace, with only pearls upon her neck and arms,
and the wedding ring upon her finger. It was a far different bridal from
her first one; and she felt it to be so, and wondered if it was wicked
for her to be so happy, when just a little way from the bright lights
and sounds of festivity Charlie lay sleeping, with the young moon
shining on his grave. Roy, too, thought of Georgie, in far-off
Greenwood, and thought of her, too, with a softer, tenderer regret than
Edna could give to Charlie; for he only knew of the good there had been
in her; the bad was buried with her, and he remembered her as she had
seemed at the last,—amiable, loving, and good. But he could not wish to
exchange his bride for her; and once, when they were standing a little
out of sight, and a thought of what had almost been, came over him, he
involuntarily wound his arm tightly around Edna, and drew her to him in
a quick, passionate embrace, as if he would thus assure himself that she
was a reality, and not a myth which would vanish from his side.

The chimes from the church tower had pealed the hour of midnight, and
Merry Christmas had passed from lip to lip, ere the party broke up, and
the last guest was gone. An hour later, and every light had disappeared
from Leighton; but the moon and the stars which heard the angels sing
eighteen hundred years ago shone over the place, and seemed to breathe a
benediction upon the newly-wedded husband and wife, whom all had
pronounced so well-suited to each other.




                               CHAPTER L.
                              CONCLUSION.


Two years later, and again the Christmas chimes were ringing from many a
tower, and the words, “Peace on earth, good-will to men,” were sung by
many a voice, while many a welcome greeting was given to returning
friends, and to none a warmer or more welcome one than was extended to
Jack and Maude, who came from their home in Jersey to keep Christmas at
Leighton, where Edna presided as mistress, with no shadow on her bright
face, or sorrow in her heart. Hers had been a happy life since the day
Roy called her his wife; and no ripple, however small, had broken the
smooth surface of the matrimonial sea on which she sailed so pleasantly.
All in all to each other, neither she nor Roy had cared to leave their
pleasant home; but had remained there all the time, with the exception
of an occasional trip to New York, and a visit of a few days to Rocky
Point and Allen’s Hill.

“Oh, I am so happy that I sometimes tremble lest I should wake some
morning and find it all a dream,” Edna said to Maude, as she led the way
to the suite of rooms which had been prepared for Mrs. Jack, with her
nurse and babies, for Maude had reached that honor, and the cares of
maternity sat very gracefully upon her.

“Edna Browning” she had named the expected stranger, and had held all
sorts of consultations with Mrs. Roy concerning the christening robes
and the christening dinner, and had talked quite confidently of what her
daughter would and would not do. How, then, was she amazed and
confounded when the result proved to be _twins_, and boys at that! Two
great, red-faced, sturdy boys, at whom she looked askance, and from whom
she shrunk at first as from something appalling, and of which she was
ashamed.

Edna Browning was a Betsy Trotwood affair now, and they named the babies
John and Roy, but the father always called them Jack and Gill. And they
were spending their first Christmas at Leighton; and Mr. and Mrs.
Freeman Burton were there also, the latter still in black for her
darling Georgie, whom she talked about a great deal, wishing so much
that she could be with them as she used to be.

“Not that I want you away, my dear,” she would add, laying her hand on
Edna’s shoulder, “or wish that things with you and Roy were otherwise,
only I miss poor Georgie so much, but Maude is a great comfort to me.”

And this is true, for to some degree Maude has taken Georgie’s place in
her aunt’s affections. She spends a good deal of time at Oakwood with
her boys, to whom Mr. Burton calls himself grandpa, while his wife is
the grandma; and it is said that in his private drawer there is a will
giving all his worldly possessions to his beloved niece, Mrs. John
Heyford, and her heirs forever; so Jack is doing well in a worldly point
of view, and is talking of building a handsome country seat, where Maude
can keep her ponies, and her children, and be what she desires to be, a
farmer’s wife in comfortable circumstances. Uncle Phil is also at
Leighton keeping the Christmas holidays, and playing with the twins, and
rallying Edna on Maude’s surprising success. But Aunt Jerry is not
there. “Got the rheumatism in her hip, and is crosser than four bears,”
Uncle Phil said, and then Edna knew that he had been to Allen’s Hill,
and looked at him so inquiringly, that he replied, “No use, no use,—and
I may as well tell you that I’ve made a prodigious fool of myself, and
been after that snap-dragon again. She looked so trim and neat when you
were married, that my heart kept thumpin’ under my jacket; and I was so
lonesome with you and Maude both gone for good, that I—yes—well—I—yes,
yes—asked her again, and said I was ’Piscopal now, and told her I’d
build a Gothic cottage, and we might take comfort yet, for it was
lonesome and awful cold winter nights, and she called me an old fool,
and told me to let her alone, and I did, but kept thinkin’, and
hankerin’, and rememberin’ how slim and straight she looked, and I’ve
begun the Gothic house, you know, and it will be finished in the spring,
and—and—yes, yes—the upshot is, I went out there two weeks ago and found
her on crutches, and tried her again with the ’Piscopal and the Gothic,
but no go. She didn’t dislike me, she said, and she was lonesome at
times, but she wouldn’t be a laughing-stock for nobody; and she gave me
the mitten the third time, and I’ve give it up for good.”

Edna tried to console him, and told him her aunt might change her mind
yet, but he did not think she would, and said he could stand it if she
didn’t; and was the merriest of them all at the dinner, where Maude and
Edna appeared in evening dress, looking as young and beautiful as in
their girlish days, while Roy and Jack seemed and were perfectly happy
and altogether satisfied in the choice they had made.

And now, saying good-by to Leighton, we glance for a moment at poor Aunt
Jerry, who ate her dinner alone and let one single tear roll down her
cheeks as she thought of the party at Leighton, and of herself, so
lonely and forlorn. As the night deepened without, and the shadows crept
into every corner of the room, she tried, by caressing her tabby-cat,
and watching the fire-light flickering on the wall, to get up a little
enthusiasm for her surroundings, and believe that she was happy and
content. But it would not do; there was a craving in her heart for other
companionship than that of cat and cow, and putting the former from her
lap she hobbled to the window and looking out into the night, thought of
the Gothic cottage, and the man who had offered it to her acceptance,
and called her Jerry as he did so.

“It might be better than living here alone, and it might be worse,” she
soliloquized. “There’s nothing bad about him, and I do believe, that as
far as he knows, he is a good churchman now, but he _is_ short, and fat,
and stumpy, and if you’d let him, would be silly enough to keep your
stomach riled the most of the time. No, Tabby and I’ll try it a spell
longer anyway, and then if he is fool enough to ask again,
I—don’t—know—; it’s about an even thing;” and the good woman went back
to her chair by the fire, and Tabby crept again into her lap, and purred
her content with things as they were, and the kettle from which Aunt
Jerry was to have a cup of tea when the clock struck eight, sang upon
the hearth, and made, with the snapping of the wood, a pleasant, cheery
sound which lulled Aunt Jerry to sleep at last, and there we will leave
her, not knowing any better than the reader, whether that Gothic cottage
at Rocky Point will ever have a mistress or not, though we have a
suspicion that it will!


                                THE END.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




[Illustration:

                             A Catalogue of

                                 BOOKS

                              PUBLISHED BY

                            CARLETON & CO.,

                               NEW YORK.


                            Madison Square,
                              _corner of_
                        5th Avenue and Broadway.

                                 1872.

              _G. W. Carleton._      _G. W. Dillingham._]




[Illustration]

 “_There is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books no less than in
 the faces of men, by which a skilful observer will know as well what to
               expect from the one as the other._”—BUTLER.




[Illustration]


                               NEW BOOKS

                         Recently Published by

                    G. W. CARLETON & CO., New York,

               Madison Square, Fifth Avenue and Broadway.

  N.B.—THE PUBLISHERS, upon receipt of the price in advance, will send
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                            Marion Harland.

  ALONE.—               A novel.                   12mo. cloth, $1.50
  HIDDEN PATH.—           do.                          do.      $1.50
  MOSS SIDE.—             do.                          do.      $1.50
  NEMESIS.—               do.                          do.      $1.50
  MIRIAM.—                do.                          do.      $1.50
  AT LAST.—               do.    _Just published._     do.      $1.50
  HELEN GARDNER.—         do.                          do.      $1.50
  BUNNYBANK.—             do.                          do.      $1.50
  HUSBANDS AND HOMES.—    do.                          do.      $1.50
  RUBY’S HUSBAND.—        do.                          do.      $1.50
  PHEMIE’S TEMPTATION.—   do.                          do.      $1.50
  THE EMPTY HEART.—       do.                          do.      $1.50
  TRUE AS STEEL.—         do.                          do.      $1.50


                              Miss Muloch.

 JOHN HALIFAX.—A novel.        With illustration.     12mo. cloth, $1.75
 A LIFE FOR A LIFE.—                   do.                do.      $1.75


                    Charlotte Bronte (Currer Bell).

     JANE EYRE.—     A novel. With illustration. 12mo. cloth, $1.75
     THE PROFESSOR.—   do.           do.             do.      $1.75
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                            Mrs. A. P. Hill.

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                            Mary J. Holmes.

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                           Augusta J. Evans.

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                           Louisa M. Alcott.

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                          The Crusoe Library.

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 THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.—                  do.                do.      $1.50


                    Captain Mayne Reid.—Illustrated.

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 ──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼──────────────────
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 LOST LENORE.—             │                         │    do.      $1.50
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                          Joseph Rodman Drake.

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                            “Brick” Pomeroy.

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   musings                                                         $1.50


                           John Esten Cooke.

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 OUT OF THE FOAM.—            do. _Just published._       do.      $1.50


                              Victor Hugo.

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            DO.             In the Spanish language,      do.       5.00


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                            Julie P. Smith.

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                          Richard B. Kimball.

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                             Ernest Renan.

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 TITAN AGONISTES.—                    An American novel.           $2.00

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
      spelling.
 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.